


Illusion of Nephilim

by sageclover61



Series: Legerdemain [2]
Category: Good Omens, Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol, Archangels, Canon-Typical Violence, Chuck is "bad" but not as bad as in Paradise so we're making progress maybe, Family, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Lucifer fell and became Sam Winchester, Lucifer!Sam, Michael fell and became Dean Winchester, Michael!Dean, Self-Harm, Self-Harming Jack Kline, Suicidal Jack Kline, Suicide Attempt, Violence against Children, drugged archangels
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2019-09-06 09:39:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16830058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sageclover61/pseuds/sageclover61
Summary: Michael and Lucifer (Sam and Dean) decided they were enjoying their vacation on Earth and weren't ready to go back to Heaven yet. Raphael and Gabriel tagged along because the former wasn't going anywhere and the latter had been spending too long looking after his older brothers turned defenseless humans that he wasn't going to stop now, even if they had their grace back and didn't really need any protection he could provide.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I was considering waiting to post this until was complete, as I did with War of Illusion, but a friend convinced me to change my mind, so here we are. Enjoy! Beta'd by Thallen and Hyrule, all mistakes are mine.

Taking a break in Gabriel’s pocket universe with his siblings reminding him that they still loved him didn’t fix everything for Raphael. There was no way that it could, because he had been alone for too many aeons and he was not proud of the decisions he’d made. He hadn’t even told his siblings about everything that he had done.

They couldn’t stay in the pocket universe forever. Once they left, the four archangels returned to hunting. Raphael had only lived among mortals for most of two decades, so Michael and Lucifer, and even Gabriel, took it upon themselves to teach him everything they could about the human processes of hunting supernatural creatures that posed a threat to them. Despite the extensive powers of creation they had access to, Sam and Dean still preferred to hunt as humanly as possible. After living for so many lifetimes without their grace, it was almost as if they still didn’t really want it. (Not that they would have ever considered tearing it out again. Been there, done that, let’s not do it again.) And Castiel still tailed after Dean like a duckling after it’s mother.

There was no talk of returning to Heaven. The four archangels agreed that it was past time for the angels to learn freewill, and while they might have benefited from some guidance on the matter, Michael and Lucifer wanted to enjoy this last human lifetime.

Civil war did not break out in heaven and the legions did not break into factions. No one suddenly decided that purgatory was a good place to get into, so there were no leviathans on Earth. Only the arches knew what Leviathans even were, and it wasn’t one of the creatures they worried about.

Raphael didn’t care one way or the other what they were doing. The fact that all four of them were together after aeons was enough. If they had sent him away, it would have killed him. His unfortunate encounter with ghost sickness was proof enough for him.

In their early years, Gabriel had always been the one dogging in his older brothers’ footsteps. Michael and Lucifer had been nigh inseparable, so Gabriel had followed at their heels. At the time, Raphael had enjoyed doing his own things more. It wasn’t so much a clash between their personalities as much as that the rambunctious shenanigans his siblings got up to often made his head hurt. They were loud and active, so he wanted nothing more than hide away in the library to have his quiet time.

If Raphael had known then what his passive lack of action would result in, he would not have done it. But that was the past and his siblings held him responsible for nothing. Everything was fine now.

* * *

Chuck took one look at the page that had just been ejected from the printer and immediately put it in the paper shredder. It read like the final ending of a book series, with almost as much mundanity as “And they lived happily ever after forever.” It was unacceptable! The Apocalypse was supposed to end with Sam Winchester and at the least Lucifer being returned to the cage. The Devil didn’t get a second chance! There were reasons he had been in the cage! Good reasons!

He had no idea how to fix the mess his story had become. The apocalypse had clearly been averted by one means or another, but Sam was alive, living on Earth as Lucifer of all beings. And he was living in peaceful harmony with his archangelic siblings who were also playing at being hunters, except for Gabriel who still sometimes saw himself as the Trickster.

It was even worse than that though. He’d just had this vision dream where Gabriel had told the others he was on a run for more sweets, because apparently even though he was an archangel and most definitely not a Trickster, he still enjoyed certain aspects of it. Except that’s not what he’d done! Because apparently he was actually a father to a bunch of nephilim, -count them, 6. The creation of Nephilim had been banned for a reason!

Chuck was really out of ideas though, because his story was so far off track he was almost certain he couldn’t fix it. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t try! Obviously getting Castiel and Crowley to team up to open purgatory was kind of out of the question, and he didn’t exactly  _ like _ the idea of never eating anything that wasn’t vegan when the leviathans decided to eat humans, but that didn’t mean there weren’t other choices.

The prophet considered another option. He hadn’t met Becky Rosen yet, but he’d been paying attention to her internet presence for a while because she had been supposed to make an appearance when the Winchesters came to town, but they never had. He would just have to send her to them because this was about the time she was supposed to make the demon deal. The Winchesters had never met Crowley, but the demon king would still have to get involved because he really couldn’t let demons get away with breaking deals by shortening the length of time the deal maker got to live. Bad for business, wouldn’t he say? But first to make the girl realize that the supernatural was real. Then the demon deal.

  
Of course! Chuck typed, a course of action taken that would ensure Becky Rosen would both have a run in with the supernatural creatures she had spent years wishing were real, and take the action he wanted her to take. Would a love potion of demonic origin work on an archangel? He decided not to worry about it, because why would anyone care about consistency when he was telling the story he  _ wanted  _ to tell?

* * *

“Lucifer’s under the influence of a love potion!” Michael shouted as he entered the most recent crappy hotel room.

Raphael tilted his head. “I’m sorry, could you repeat that? I’m certain I just heard you say that the  _ third  _ most powerful entity in the known universe is under the effects of a potion.”

“He must be! He  _ married  _ her!”

Raphael choked on air he hadn’t needed to inhale. “What?!”

It took some time for Michael to explain what he did know, which was little. He and Lucifer had been investigating some strange happenings that stank of demon, and suddenly he was getting a text from Lucifer to meet him at a chapel, where he then got married.

Gabriel had disappeared again,  _ which seemed to be a new regular occurrence,  _ but Raphael just knew that he was going to be so disappointed that he’d missed Lucifer’s wedding. Even if wasn’t real, but there was no way they would not be teasing Lucifer about this for the rest of forever.

It wasn’t even that Gabriel had disappeared again, because these days that was normal, it was that Raphael couldn’t reach him. Gabriel had turned his cell phone off  _ and _ turned off his access to the angel choir. He'd said he needed some more candy,  _ which he could snap up,  _ and something about an evil bastard that needed to pay for something. At face value that sounded like typical trickster shenanigans wrapped inside Gabriel's domain as Archangel of Justice. But Raphael was suspicious and he couldn't figure out why.

“What are we going to do about it?”

“We're going to get closer and investigate!”

Raphael agreed, but internally he was thinking that if Gabriel kept disappearing they would have to start investigating him too. But there was no reason to worry yet because it wasn’t he wasn’t doing anything as uncharacteristic as coming back married.  _ Yet. _

Michael did not know who Becky Rosen was, and neither did Raphael, although she did seem to know everything there was to know about Sam and Dean Winchester.  _ But nothing about Adam Milligan or the archangels. Interesting. _

Right after Michael left after dropping by the motel that Becky and Sam had been staying at, one of the phones in the glove compartment started ringing. Upon further investigation, he discovered that it was one of Sam’s old phones, and had somehow managed to be both on and charged. The number was listed as restricted, but he answered it anyway.

The phone had barely clicked in answer before the person at the other end of line started ranting. “Sam! It’s about time you answered your damn phone, you bastard! I haven’t heard from you since Dean died and I thought you might have followed him from the bottom of a bottle and that no one would tell me when that happened, you son of a bitch! I practically raised you morons, don’t you think I deserve to know what’s going on with you?!”

“Bobby?!” Michael exclaimed. 

There was momentary silence on the other end of line, and Michael had an _ Oh shit  _ moment, because  _ no one had told Bobby he had come back to life. _ Not to mention that no one had mentioned they were archangels, or that angels were real, or that the apocalypse had been successfully averted.  _ And probably not that there had been an apocalypse in the first place. _

“Did Sam sell his soul for you?!”

“No!” Dean exclaimed. “Sam didn’t sell his soul!”  _ Why  _ would Sam have needed to sell his soul? By that point he’d known he was an archangel and he’d had Gabriel and Raphael to keep him from going over the edge. And then there was the randomness where Sam had been like Sleeping Beauty, but that was just some phenomena he  _ didn’t want explained  _ that helped prevent Sam from doing anything stupid he’d regret later.

There was a second of silence at the end of the line. “If Sam didn’t sell his soul, then what are you?! If you’ve hurt Sam, I’ll tear you apart!”

“Uh… Sam’s fine,” Michael replied. Under some weird potion and married, apparently, but that wasn’t  _ his _ fault. That was probably Sam eating or drinking something he really shouldn’t have.  _ Did that girl have  _ any  _ idea the forces she was meddling with if she could  _ drug  _ an archangel? _ “He can’t come to the phone right now because we’re in the middle of a hunt, but would you like me to have him call you when he gets back?”

“How about I send another hunter up your way to lend a hand? I’m sure Sam did all the proper testing, but I’d like to hear for myself that the two of you are exactly as you appear.”

Well  _ fuck,  _ Michael thought, even as he said, “That’s really not necessary, Bobby. We’ve got it under control!” Except that wouldn’t convince him, not at this point,  _ and he couldn’t find out about the archangel business.  _

“I’m sure you do, but I’d still feel better if you all had some back up, and he’s itching for a hunt. Where’s this hunt again?”

“Pine Creek.” He couldn’t just lie to Bobby. The man would instantly know and at least he could keep an eye on the hunter this way. Whatever it was, it was nasty if it could affect even an archangel so strongly and if Bobby was going to get the destination out of him one way or another, then this way he could offer some protection.

“There’s a hamburger joint there, isn’t there? You should meet him tomorrow, three pm.”

“This isn’t necessary, Bobby.”

“I’m just worried about you boys, and that’s not gonna change.”

Raphael flew into the passenger seat as Bobby continued speaking. “You’ll be there, Boy, or there’ll be Hell to pay, you got me?”

“Did you find out anything?” Raphael asked.

“Sam’s been drugged by something strange, love potion I imagine. He got married, Bobby,” Dean said.

“All the more reason for a little bit of backup, but you’d better no be lying.” Bobby hung up before Michael could argue further, so the archangel put the phone back in the glovebox with a sigh.  _ How was he supposed to actually explain the archangel thing to Bobby? There was no way he wasn’t going to figure out that something had changed. _

“Who was that?” Raphael asked, watching Dean curiously.

“Bobby Singer. Someone forgot to tell him I came back from Hell, and he’s not happy. He’s also insistent that another hunter helps me out with this. He’s not convinced I’m not a monster after Sam.”

* * *

Michael showed up to the restaurant earlier than the time Bobby had given because he wanted to take the opportunity to stake the place out. He may have been an archangel, but that didn’t mean he was going to suddenly allow himself to walk into a trap, but it didn’t look like there really was a trap.

The eldest archangel didn’t know the hunter he was supposed to be meeting. But as he sauntered his way around the dining room, the hunter found him.

“You must be Dean! Bobby said you’d probably be early, he’ll be here any minute but I had less distance to travel and I really wanted to meet you. Name’s Garth.” The hunter called Garth was a scrawny  _ kid  _ in Michael’s eyes, and  _ short.  _ But his soul was one of the brightest things Michael had  _ ever  _ seen and he just knew he was going to have to protect the kid or he’d never get over the guilt he’d feel about it.

Michael allowed the hunter to drag him back to his table and watched as the kid laid out a few tools in a row on the table.

“Bobby said I had to be really suspicious of you, but I don’t really see why. But I guess it must be done.”

Garth handed Michael a cup, which he eyed with some trepidation. It was a clear liquid, so Michael imagined it was holy water. He swallowed it in one gulp and put the glass back on the table so he could get a look at the rest of the tools on the table. He picked up the silver spoon and cut himself with the iron knife. Since Michael was an archangel, he wasn’t sure exactly how much good cutting himself with an iron knife was going to do, but it did draw blood and his blood was the correct color, which is always good.

  
  


Bobby showed up before Garth could finish doing the same tests himself, and made Dean repeat all the tests for him even when Garth tried to convince him that Dean wasn’t a monster. “He passed!”

“And I thought he’d gone to hell. Just humor an old man.”

So Michael drank another cup of holy water, which was actually making his brain feel kind of fuzzy, and twirled the silver cutlery because he was bored, and made another cut along his arm. And then Bobby spilled the salt shaker all over him because  _ “You can never be too careful, Boy.”  _ But when that proves that Dean is human, (or as human as Bobby could actually test for, Michael kind of felt sorry for the guy) Bobby pulls Dean into a startling bear hug. “You should have called! I’m glad you’re alive, but I’d really like to know how you got out of that deal. Sam’s still around?”

“Sam’s fine! He’s just…. Under the influence of some weird potion thing.”

“There’s definitely a hunt here. I read the papers. One guy died a week after winning the lottery in a freak accident, and then this morning a guy who just got off the bench died practicing at the pitch.”

“That is a little strange,” Michael agreed. “Doesn’t that sound a little like demon deals? But why would they be called in so early?”

“It is a little odd, but I did find the place to investigate next.”

* * *

Michael, Garth, and Bobby investigated the promotion that was news to everyone involved, only to run into Sam and Becky doing the same thing. Garth saved the wife. And Lucifer grinned at Michael like a lovesick puppy and it made him want to puke.

So the three of them reconvened at the restaurant for a meal and to discuss what to do about the situation. Someone was calling in demon deals sooner than they were supposed to be, and it was unacceptable. Michael wished that he wasn’t stuck with Bobby and Garth because what he really wanted to do was talk to Raphael about hell’s management. But getting Raphael here or calling him would both be seen as suspicious and if he wanted to get Lucifer back, he had to be at least a little on the careful side.

And then Michael heard from Lucifer and the woman who had dosed him with a love potion because apparently the demon selling deals was attempting to sell people the thing they wanted most in their lives. Which made sense for a demon, except it didn’t occur at a crossroad because the demon was tracking down the people who had great desires.

_ Why had some woman they had never met desired to marry Lucifer? _

Michael unfortunately never got the answer to that question, but he did get to help set up the trap for the demons. The woman would ask the demon for more of the love potion, and then the rest of them would exorcise the demons and everything would go back to normal.

It would have been too perfect for everything to go exactly as planned. So, like something always must, something happened.

Right as Michael and Bobby were chanting the exorcism on the second demon, (Garth was unconscious under the table and Sam was playing that he was because even though he was still dosed he still remembered to hide the fact that he was an archangel?) when there was a bright light that temporarily blinded everyone. When the light cleared and Bobby had blinked the bright spots out of his vision (Michael was unaffected because Archangel) Gabriel was standing in the middle of smote demon. “What the hell did I miss?! No wedding invitation, no phone calls, I was only gone a few days and I feel like I missed the end of the world!”

Michael winced because Bobby was staring at him. Since when had Gabriel’s timing  _ ever  _ been so bad? Raphael hadn’t necessarily agreed with the plan, but at least he’d promised not to reveal anything they didn’t want the hunter to know yet. But Gabe just had to blow that plan through the nine circles of hell,  _ of which traversing would probably be preferable to the explanations they would now have to give. _

Bobby climbed to his feet. “I want to know who and what the hell you all are,  _ right now.  _ Samuel Winchester, I can tell you’re not really unconscious, or still drugged if you were from the start, and I’d like some fucking answers.”

Sam sighed and stood. Then he looked at Michael.  _ “How much do we tell him?”  _ he asked mentally.

_ “If Gabriel hadn’t been so out of the loop, we probably wouldn’t have had to tell him anything. Even less if you’d bother to tell him I was alive from the get go.” _

_ “I forgot, sorry.”  _ Sam rolled his eyes. “Angels are real,” he started with, because that was easy. He was exhausted. He’d been drugged at first, but then he’d thought it would be fun to pull one over on Michael. Clearly that hadn’t worked out quite as nicely as it could have, and now here they were, about to lose the one real parental figure they’d ever gotten. It was poetic,  _ and it sucked.  _ “They decided they wanted an apocalypse because they were bored. In prophecy, Dean was called the Righteous Man for who knows why, and they needed him to break the first seal, which comes from shedding blood in Hell. But they also thought they wanted him to be possessed by the Archangel Michael, which is why they sent an angel to bring him back. But it’s not that simple, because once upon a time, two archangels gave up their immortality and their powers so they could be human. They lived lifetime after lifetime as humans, until we get to the new century, where they were reborn yet again as two children of hunters, closer to their true angelic selves than they’d ever been before. And instead of an apocalypse, they got their powers back and decided to keep hunting monsters on Earth, because we kind of like it here.”

Bobby raised an eyebrow. “You want me to believe you’re both archangels now.”

“They were always archangels,” Gabriel replied. “Dean as Michael and Sam as Lucifer. They just remember it now in a way that haven’t in any other lifetime. But they’re still Sam and Dean. Those memories don’t just disappear.”

“Didn’t we kill you, Trickster?” Bobby snarled.

“I’m an archangel, not just a Trickster. Why would I be so easily killed?” Gabriel grinned. “The name’s Gabriel.”

“And there’s how many archangels?”

“Four,” Dean said. “Raphael’s not here because I asked him to keep a low profile while we were on this hunt. Apparently he’s the only one capable of following directions.”

“Raphael, Gabriel came back and made a mess, but if you’d like to come say hello…”

Before Sam could finish speaking there was another flash of light as their brother made an appearance. “Gabriel! You can’t just disappear! I was worried!”

“Alright,” Bobby said. “You two knuckleheads had better remember to keep in touch, because I’m not afraid to hunt your sorry asses down.”

Dean stared at Bobby, and Sam had the audacity to look ashamed. “Won’t happen again,” Lucifer mumbled.

“It’d better not,” Bobby growled. “You two may have grown up and got some crazy mojo I’ll never understand, but I still  _ raised you.  _ And don’t you dare forget that family don’t end with blood.”

Michael and Lucifer both crept towards the old grizzled hunter and engulfed him in a hug.

  
  


Garth came to and scrambled to his feet. “Did I miss anything? Did we win?”

Gabriel and Raphael blinked in confusion at the other hunter while Lucifer tried to hide a snicker, unsuccessfully, and Michael rolled his eyes.

  
  


Gabriel and Raphael went to sit in the car while Michael and Lucifer saw first Bobby, then Garth, off. Bobby left with little more than a reminder to  _ call for chrissakes! _ Garth was harder to get rid of though, because he didn’t want to leave Dean’s shadow.

Michael finally clasped Garth on the shoulder and said, “You don’t suck.”

“That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me!” he exclaimed, soul positively glowing as he jumped forward to hug Dean, which Michael returned awkwardly because he didn’t really have any idea what to do with the eager hunter.

So they stood next to the Impala as they watched him leave. “Aww, you made a fwiend,” Lucifer mumbled, elbowing Michael in the ribs.

“Don’t start,” Michael mumbled, turned to enter the car. “You have no idea how much trouble you’re in for this stunt.”

* * *

“So how’d you even find out about us?” Michael asked, because that was the one question he was desperate to have answered.

“Haven’t you ever heard of the book series, ‘Supernatural?’ It’s by Carver Edlund, but that’s just a pseudonym. His real name’s Chuck Shurley. Anyway, it was odd, but while I was minding my own business last week, he contacted me, said I’d be interested in a piece of information he had. He gave me the location of the demon, but I didn’t know he was a demon, and told me where I’d be able to run into Sam.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The archangels head over to investigate Chuck Shurley and find out why the hell he'd put the fangirl, Becky Rosen, on their tail. The answers are not what they expected.

_ “So how’d you even find out about us?” Michael asked, because that was the one question he was desperate to have answered. _

_ “Haven’t you ever heard of the book series, ‘Supernatural?’" Becky Rosen asked, looking aghast. "It’s by Carver Edlund, but that’s just a pseudonym. His real name’s Chuck Shurley. Anyway, it was odd, but while I was minding my own business last week, he contacted me, said I’d be interested in a piece of information he had. He gave me the location of the demon, but I didn’t know he was a demon, and told me where I’d be able to run into Sam.” _

* * *

Raphael had always known that Chuck Shurley was a prophet. That much he had known. The one thing he hadn’t done while pretending to be human was fail in his duties of protecting the last named prophet. The angels never took a close look at the lives of the prophets they had been assigned to protect as some had never needed that protection. They were there specifically if creatures came near prophets that posed a threat. Prophets were to be protected, but not scrutinized.

The archangel had honestly forgotten about the prophet because everything told him the man was safe enough, so he could put him out of mind when he was actively doing other more important things.

“You’re just like the guys from Supernatural!” The store clerk’s raised voice drew Raphael’s attention back towards where Michael and Lucifer were staring at the clerk as though he’d grown a second head.

“Do you have any of those books in stock?” Michael asked.

“Sure do!” The clerk pointed to a shelf behind them, not far from where Raphael was standing, and led them over. His older brothers blinked as they realized the series had more than twenty books, the covers of which all had pretty good representations of the two brothers.

“We’d like to buy the complete set,” Dean said, his face turning a pink color even as he said it.

  
  


Which was how they came to be sitting in their motel room, the entire series spread about between them as the twins decided they absolutely had to read every single book,  _ and then did.  _

“They’re pretty accurate,” Dean finally said when they were done.

“Except for the archangel stuff.”

“Okay, everything after I went to Hell. Some of this is even in the wrong order. And why is there an entire set that takes place after Lucifer comes out of the cage? Nothing happened!” Dean exclaimed. “You were never in the cage!”

“If I may?” Gabriel waited a second to see if they would keep talking about it. Both Michael and Lucifer both looked at him. “I think this is a version of what would have happened if Lucifer  _ had  _ been in the cage, instead of the elaborate illusions the two of you used. There are alternate realities because the multiverse theory is correct. One person in this universe makes a choice, someone in another universe makes the opposite choice. There’s an infinite number of universes, in that sense. In this universe, the two of you chose to flee Heaven. In others, Lucifer would have ended up in the Cage.”

“And these books are a version of what could have happened if Lucifer had gone into the cage?” Lucifer asked.

“Yes.”

“Then we should talk to the author,” Dean said.

* * *

Chuck Shurley’s home was not in great condition. It was a dilapidated two story house in a neighborhood of equally run down houses. The lawn was overrun with weeds and it could have used a new coat of paint a decade sooner. It did not seem like a place of heavenly intent, but Michael knocked on the doorway anyway, Lucifer at his heels.

Raphael and Gabriel were standing on the sidewalk. Raphael wasn’t comfortable being here because he was the protector of this particular prophet and his brain was still screaming at him not to interfere. But when Michael wanted answers, there was no stopping him, and really, he only had to intervene if the prophet’s life was in danger. Which it wasn’t. Gabriel was standing next to him because the youngest archangel wasn’t sure how to feel about being here either.

The door opened, revealing a small man holding a bottle of whiskey. He had graying hair and a short beard growing. “Whaddaya want?”

Michael was not impressed, and his tone conveyed that lack of interest. “Chuck Shurley? Author known as Carver Edlund?”

“Who are you? Why are you here?”

“I’m Dean Winchester,” the archangel replied, “And this is my brother Sam Winchester, and down there are our brothers, Adam Milligan and….”

“Raphael and Gabriel.” The prophet swallowed. “You can all come in, I guess.” He swallowed again. “Why are you here?”

They all went inside. The interior of the house was more ransackled than the exterior. There were papers and shredded papers covering most of the living room. On the table there was a desktop computer and a printer. There was an overflowing waste paper basket under it, along with a paper shredder in a similar state. Broken bottles littered floor and the couch still smelled strongly of vomit.

Chuck motioned for them to sit on the couch. Raphael quietly cleaned it and Gabriel cleared himself a place on the floor.

“Since you recognize Raphael and Gabriel, does that mean you know about the archangel stuff?” Dean asked.

“Sure I know about it. I wrote all of it,” Chuck answered. “But that doesn't explain why you're here. You’re not a hallucination.”

“Nope,” Michael replied.

“Well, there's only one explanation. Obviously I'm a god,” Chuck said.

Raphael rolled his eyes. “You’re not a god. You’re a prophet of god.”

“You’ve been mangling the message, though, and we’d like to know why,” Gabriel added. “You left out the part about the archangels, and added in weird stuff about me trapping my brothers in a time loop. I made the choice not to do that very intentionally, so why’d you write it some other way?”

“ I write things and then they come to life. Yeah, no, I'm definitely a god. A cruel, cruel, capricious god. The things I put you through –”

“You changed the story. Made it worse than it really had to be. At least we’re still in one piece, but the story you tried to tell, how it would have been if we weren’t archangels, those characters would not have come out in one piece. And they would have been us in another universe. Why are you writing someone else’s story? Prophets aren’t supposed to see other worlds.”

“Because it’s the story I want to tell!” Chuck exclaimed. “And I see exactly what changes you’ve made! You only think they’re for the better, but they’re against the Ineffable Plan!”

The archangels blinked in confusion. Prophets didn’t change things. They told the stories they were told to write. None of them were entirely accurate, but a lot of them were drunks.  _ None of them had held so much hubris though.  _ Was this  _ really _ a prophet?

Michael stood up angrily, ignoring the broken glass he stepped in as he did so. “There is no Ineffable Plan! Father left! And maybe that’s for the best, if he should still be so intent on seeing Lucifer in a cage.”

“He needs to be contained! He would destroy humanity!”

“No,” Lucifer said. “I  _ like  _ humanity. I never suggested that I would destroy it. I only questioned their intentions. I wondered if they weren’t flawed, if we all aren’t flawed in some way or another. Nothing’s perfect.”

“But they are! They’re perfect and beautiful! To say otherwise is blasphemous!”

Michael shook his head. “You do sound like Dad. His last command should have been ‘Love humanity and observe them.’ His children would have been happier if he’d chosen his words with more care. But you don’t  _ care  _ do you? As long as everything falls into step exactly as you want it to, and if it doesn’t, you’ll try to force it to. Is that why Sam slept for four months? Because you couldn’t fix it the way you wanted to, you’d try another way?”

“I was stopping him from following you into Hell!”

“Becky had a bigger place in the books you wrote. Did you drag her into the picture because you never had the opportunity to sleep with her in this universe?  _ You’re a creep. _ ”

“I am God and you will cease disrespecting me in My House!”

There was a flash of light as the tone of the house shifted. The trash was removed, everything tidied up in a way better fitting a Celestial Being. 

“Then we'll leave,” Michael said. “You wrote the story you wanted to tell because you'd rather we were puppets on a string than the adults you were supposed to have raised to be good and thoughtful people. Children have minds of their own, Dad, and you have to let them live and make their own choices.” He pulled something out his pocket. A necklace that should have been the symbol of a brother's love, but instead contained the darkness that had corrupted their family.

“You might have been able to redeem yourself to your children, but you made the wrong choice.” Michael placed the necklace on the computer table and walked towards the door.

Chuck moved to the table and picked up the amulet, trying to understand why it had come back to him.

“You won't be able to get rid of it,” Michael warned. “By giving the mark to Lucifer, you tore our family apart and corrupted it. Heaven isn't in great shape, but they could be in worse condition, and it will get better. But you won't be welcome. You chose humans over your firstborn and not only did you abandon them, you harmed us. Actively sought to destroy anything and everything that dared to disagree because you were so selfish that you believed your absolute power to be absolute and it corrupted you. We're done here.”

Michael turned towards the door even as Chuck shouted, “Don’t you walk away from Me! We are not done until I say we’re done!”

Raphael stood from the couch and when Gabriel held up an arm, pulled his brother up. “We’re done. We’re so done with you and your pitiable actions. You’re a petty and spiteful Being, not the god of love and forgiveness your followers would have believed in. Do as You will, but leave us out of it. You don’t deserve the power you had over us, not if this is how you would choose to use it.”

They flew away instead of leaving via normal means. Chuck had a headache, a really bad one, and the bottle of whiskey was empty. “Damn archangels,” he muttered, dropping the bottle on the floor and crashing on the couch. The house was no longer pristine, even more of a mess than it had been when the archangels had arrived. Shattered glass and paper covered every inch of the floor, and the vibrant odor of vomit was not contained to the couch, but to the rest of the furniture as well. And all the alcohol was mysteriously gone. “Fucking hell.”

* * *

Four archangels sat on the hood of the impala, two bottles of Whiskey and four tumblers to share between them. Michael poured for them.

“Was stealing from that pitiable creature really necessary?” Raphael asked, even as he took a hesitant sip. Adam Milligan had never been old enough to drink (and still wasn’t) so the archangel had never tried this alcoholic beverage before.

“Why did we go in the first place?” Michael drowned his first cup in one swallow and poured more. “These things never turn out the way they’re supposed to.”

“It needed to be done.” Lucifer stared at his glass as though it contained all the answers to the universe. If he was but a little more drunk, maybe it would have. “We needed to know this truth.”

Gabriel also gulped his, but swished it around in his mouth, letting the flavor linger before swallowing. “Maybe they weren’t the answers we were looking for, but it doesn’t matter. If he could have changed our path, he would have. He has no power over us, he’s just a drunk with too much free time. It’s fine.” He eyed the bottle, which was almost half empty. “There’s not enough alcohol here to get ourselves plastered,” he said, mournfully, before snapping. One of the canteens of holy water from the trunk of the impala appeared in his hand.

“What’s that for?” Raphael asked. “Why do we want to ‘get plastered’?”

“We just found out Dad is worse than just a deadbeat. Of course we want to get plastered,” Lucifer said. He still hadn’t touched the whiskey in his glass. “Pass the holy water, won’t you Gabriel?”

“Maybe you should be the designated driver, Raph,” Michael suggested.

“Or we could just go back to the motel instead of doing this here? Or not at all?” Raphael looked around. They were parked by the side of the road in the middle of absolute nowhere. He was unconvinced that dealing with three other plastered archangels could be a good idea. Worst case scenario, someone ended up with a nephil.


	3. Chapter 3

_ “Or we could just go back to the motel instead of doing this here? Or not at all?” Raphael looked around. They were parked by the side of the road in the middle of absolute nowhere. He was unconvinced that dealing with three other plastered archangels could be a good idea. Worst case scenario, someone ended up with a nephil. _

* * *

“Can an Amazon blade kill an archangel?” Michael asked as he walked into the hotel room.

Raphael looked up from the lore book he was reading. That holy water must have been strong stuff if he was still hallucinating from it. Didn't Mica know there was a limit on what could kill them? “Gabriel knows more about pagan stuff than I do.” Where was Gabriel, anyway? Raphael was pretty sure he'd disappeared around the time Lucifer opened the second container of holy water, but everything was really fuzzy after that.

“Your best guess. Gabriel won't be back for a day or two.” Raphael raised an eyebrow. “I spoke to him, he's fine. Apparently he’s in India, but he said something about ‘What happens in a pocket realm stays in a pocket realm’ so who knows what that means. He’ll probably be back in a day or two when he's not quite so hungover but he's not currently in any state to answer my questions.” 

Raphael decided that wasn't the strangest thing that had ever happened.

“The Amazons were blessed by Harmonia when they were near extinct, but come on, Michael. Even you know there's not very many things actually capable of taking out an archangel. But why does it matter? Amazons only use their ceremonial blades to kill the men who…….” Raphael blinked rapidly. _ “You sired a Nephil?” _

“She drugged me, I swear! But maybe? There were no signs that she was a mother, but when I went back there, she had this toddler. And it started talking while I was there. And then a few hours later, she was sending this seven year old off with some other people.”

“Same kid?”

“Yeah! Unless she has four kids named Emma.”

Raphael raised an eyebrow. He wasn’t sure whether or not he bought the drugged story. Lucifer really had been drugged, but only at the beginning. Even so, it was possible that an Amazon would have access to different resources than a demon, but that didn’t necessarily mean they should be more effective. But an  _ Amazon _ nephil?!

The archangel of healing wasn’t sure how he felt about nephilim. A lot of human carriers of nephilim had died in childbirth, so they were raised among humans they weren’t related to. The reason many had been killed by the great flood was because they had chosen to rebel against heaven. They had been raised as outcasts among humans, held responsible for deaths they were not accountable for and they had been most ignorant of their angelic origins because their celestial parents had returned to heaven and no parental responsibility had been taken.

The command that nephilim should no longer be sired had not come from God. He’d left around the time of the flood itself. His parenting skills had been so lacking, it was no surprise that his children were just as bad, or worse. Raphael had been unable to bear watching as his nieces and nephews were left abandoned to their fates by their celestial parents, so after their own father was gone, he’d spread the rumor that they were forbidden to keep any further would be children from also being abandoned.

It would be hypocritical to suffer Michael’s nephil while still forbidding the rest of the choir from mating with humans, but the restrictions could theoretically change as long as nephilim were cared for. But he’d have to come clean to the siblings he was closest to about what he’d done and he didn’t want to. He’d as good as lied to the entire choir, passing his own concerns off as that of the word of God. It had been blasphemy.

“Raph?” The eldest archangel studied the younger with concern. Raphael had been standing in silence for several minutes, obviously thinking about something related to this newest revelation. He was worried now, though, because Raphael looked almost  _ afraid _ . Raphael looked up at Michael’s interruption, and the elder had to keep from flinching because he could see it in his little brother’s eyes. Raphael was afraid of him  _ and he didn’t know why. _

Michael walked towards Raphael and pulled him into a hug. “Talk to me,” he whispered. Whatever Raphael thought, he wasn’t going to hurt his little brother. Lucifer had once considered destroying the entire race of humanity and he’d chosen to tear out his grace over letting Father hurt him. Nothing Raphael could possibly do would make him feel otherwise.

“I lied to the host,” Raphael whispered. “Maybe I shouldn’t have,  _ but I didn’t know what else to do. _ ”

Michael didn’t let go of Raphael. Maybe his brother expected him to, or to at least have a better grasp of understanding about what he was talking about. Lying to the host wasn’t that bad. They had all misled the host by creating illusions to take over for a few aeons. Although he supposed he should probably wait to say as much until after Raph had explained further. “What about?”

“After the great flood, I made sure there wouldn’t be any more nephilim by spreading a rumor that their creation had been outlawed.” Raphael choked back a sob, shaking with tension as he waited for the retribution to come. “The flood came because abandoned nephilim sought their rightful restitution from their heavenly parents and Father denied them and responded by wiping them out, as though their asking was an act of war. I didn’t want to see any more of our nieces and nephews suffer the same fate. It would have happened, time and time again and I couldn’t have handled it, so I tried to prevent it.” Tears leaked from his eyes, getting Michael’s shirt wet, but his brother didn’t let go.

  
“ _ We’ll fix it,”  _ Michael whispered. “It’ll be okay. If Emma is a nephil and not an Amazon, we won’t let anyone hurt her.”

* * *

Emma stared at the piece of meat she was holding. There was something wrong with it. The others had obediently swallowed theirs, but she knew she shouldn’t. _Bad._ _Wrong._ But what did that even mean? How could there be something wrong with food? She brought it close to her mouth when the woman growled out, “Go ahead, Emma.” Impatience. Expectation. _“Not food,”_ the voice in her head reiterated when she brought it near her mouth. _“Sinful murder.”_

Emma knew that she was supposed to listen to the voice. She wasn’t sure why, only that it was currently the most important instruction she’d ever heeded. But she wasn't sure what to do because this was a ritual and she had to partake. It didn't matter though, because right before she put it in her mouth, the meat vanished. She pretended to swallow and drank the milk. No one noticed the deceit she didn’t understand.

The amazons trained her and the other children in the art of swordsmanship. They were given bronze swords and lessons in wielding them. The four other initiates all took to their blades like fish to water, but her own felt wrong in her hands. This wasn’t  _ her _ blade. It was like a human toothpick for a giant- but that didn’t make sense. She was smaller than the other initiates, so why would she need something even bigger?

Despite the incorrectness of the blade, Emma was a natural at sword fighting. It was like swordplay was in her blood,  _ and it was, she was an Amazon, after all,  _ but to an even greater extent. She was the smallest of her age group, but outclassed them with her strength and stamina. As she practiced maneuvers, running one right after the other as fast as she could, it wasn’t only like she was metaphorically on fire,  _ but like she could fly _ . But Amazons had been human once and flying wasn’t in their skill set, as far she knew.

_ “You could fly if you wanted to.”  _ Emma still didn’t understand the little voice she could hear, but it had yet to give her reason to distrust it. And  _ oh did she want to fly _ , but she couldn’t yet. Not while under constant watch by people she couldn’t trust and not while she didn’t understand how it was possible.

Later, they were brought to a large room with an altar in it. The other amazon children had changed, growing into young adults, and she had not, still balancing somewhere around her early teens. Emma didn’t like the look of the decrepit stone block, but she wasn’t sure why. There was a flame with a boiling cauldron over it, and the Amazon Matriarch stood above it.

“We are so pleased with your progress. You are absorbing the traditions of our mothers and you are close to fulfilling your tribal destiny, and taking your place alongside your sisters.” The matriarch pulled a branding iron out of the cauldron and moved to the first girl on Emma’s right. “Today you are a warrior,” she said as she pressed it to the inside of the girl’s right wrist.

The matriarch moved to the girl between Emma and the first girl and branded her right wrist. “Though you may walk among others, your heart is only with the tribe.” She moved to stand in front of Emma, still speaking to them. “Soon, you will take the final, glorious step into adulthood. Today, you will learn how to endure pain and how to inflict it.”

Emma didn’t want to be branded. There was something about the thought of searing flesh, but there was something else, too. The ominous feeling she’d had since entering had only worsened as the matriarch had spoken and the internal voice was now screeching at her to resist. But it was just a branding iron, and neither of the two people before her seemed any worse for wear. So what could it do to her that it wouldn’t do to them?

So Emma held out her arm, anticipating that the branding iron would do nothing more than provide her with a superficial burn that would probably scar, if the mark on the matriarch’s forearm was anything to go by. The resulting press of hot metal to her arm was thousands of times worse than anything she could have imagined. Emma screamed in pain, a feral screech that echoed in the chamber with voices not solely her own, as something  _ inside  _ her revolted with an explosion. Even after the initial shock of heat, the pain didn’t fade, instead throbbing not only in her arm but also somewhere she couldn’t reach.

It felt like part of her was on fire, and she was moving not entirely of her own accord, as though in an attempt to put out said fire. Except it wasn’t an eternal flame. The heat and burning sensation was somehow  _ inside _ of her and the movement didn’t help, seeming instead to only make it worse. But she wasn’t running, no, her physical limbs weren’t moving at all. It was only when she recognized the sensation as falling that she realized she was actually  _ flying. Just like the voice said she could. _

The voice was no longer speaking to her, but her  _ need  _ led her to be standing in front of an old rickety door. It was just a door, but Emma couldn’t help but feel some trepidation as she pounded on it, fists pleading to be heard. She wasn’t sure  _ why  _ she was here, only knew that she  _ had  _ to get on the other side of the door.

There was a shout from down the hall, a “Shut the hell up!” followed by “Cease that racket at once!”

But she couldn’t stop. She just had to-

The door opened even as she was still trying to knock on it. “If you could kindly stop, you’re giving me--” The man stopped as he finally saw the  _ child  _ in the doorway. “Who’re you?”

Emma stumbled backwards as she came face to face with eyes as green as her own. The pain that went beyond her wrist flared up again, as though the thing inside her was trying to escape. Not flee exactly , but she wasn’t sure what else it could be wanting. “I’m Emma.”

He was holding a gun, but he wasn’t aiming it at her.  _ “Won’t hurt you,”  _ the voice whispered. The voice sounded as injured as the inside  _ thing  _ felt, so she wondered if they were one and the same, and if it was what had been burned along with her wrist.

He stared at her following her statement. It didn’t look quite like confusion, but almost like a defied expectation. Had he expected her to be bigger? Look older? She didn’t feel as old as the other initiates had been at the end. If anything, she felt even smaller.

She dragged her gaze back to his. “I need your help,” she said finally.

“Why?” Dean asked, a knee jerk response to the obvious desperation in her eyes.

She took a deep breath, steadying herself. “Because I’m your daughter.” The statement was true, truer than any words she’d spoke before, she knew that. But she couldn’t explain why or how she knew it. Momma hadn’t told her anything about her father. The matriarch would have when it was her turn to complete her initiation into the tribe, and further it, but she had clearly failed that.  _ And possibly exploded the tribe in the process. Oops. _ But she had no proof, and she didn’t understand how or why she was here now.

The only thing Emma knew for absolute certain was that she wasn’t going to hurt anyone here.

Her father blinked at her, but not with any disbelief. What if he didn’t want anything to do with her? She wasn’t a child anymore and he’d had no part in raising her, so why could he be expected to have any emotional connection with her? He hadn’t been an active participant in her creation, hadn’t wanted her.  _ Why was she here? What right did she have to expect  _ anything  _ from him? _

_ “ _ How did you find me?” Michael finally asked. He could see that she was nephil, his nephil, but he couldn’t see what her intentions were. Everything they read said that Amazons only began the initation mission to kill their fathers once they had reached the last stage of adolescence, but she looked  _ ten,  _ and he couldn’t tell whether or not she was here for Amazon reasons or for other reasons.

“I don’t know,” she answered. Michael could tell that she wasn’t lying, but she also looked terrified, and hurt. But even though he could see identifying markers in her grace, he couldn’t see  _ where _ she was injured. “I… I don’t want to be like  _ them. _ ”

“Okay. Come on in.” Michael stepped off to the side, giving her room to enter. Once she’d stepped inside, he shut the door. He didn’t raise the gun, but he didn’t put it away either. It didn’t look like she was armed, but you never knew and he wasn’t ready to let his guard down yet. It wouldn’t hurt a nephil and he didn’t want to shoot her. He hoped he wouldn’t have to. That would suck and Raphael would never forgive him.

Emma stepped a few more paces into the room, but she didn’t say anything. The pain from the branding was still at the forefront of her mind because it wasn’t diminishing at all. If anything, it hurt even worse than the initial prod. The other initiates had taken it so easily, why did she hurt so much she wanted to scream? She couldn’t reveal that to him though, not yet, not until she was sure he knew she wasn’t here to hurt him and she knew that he wasn’t going to hurt her either.

“You can sit down,” he said. She wasn’t talking and Michael didn’t know what else to say. If she was injured, he should check her over, but he didn’t want to give her the opportunity to get the jump on him. Raphael would probably have at least some idea of what was going on, but he wasn’t back yet. Why had everyone thought leaving him alone in the hotel room was a good idea? “Can I get you something to eat?”

She approached the bed and sat down. It was a tall bed and she had to jump to get on it because she was short. It was a huge bed, and she liked that because it felt like she could hide in it. But she forced herself to just sit, because it would have been rude to make herself too comfortable. Even if she wanted to hide and nurse her wound. Wherever it was. “I’m not hungry,” she whispered. The bed was soft, so she leaned over because she wanted to be closer to the softness. She was barefoot, so maybe he wouldn’t mind so much if she made herself a little bit comfortable on the edge of the bed.

Michael watched in confusion as she closed her eyes and drew her knees to her chest, her right arm wrapping around them. She was lying almost in fetal position on the end of the bed, which honestly made no sense. Her left arm fell, and he saw the Amazon symbol branded on her forearm. It looked new, except there was also something very wrong with it. The area around the brand was very red and swollen. He was certain if he touched it, it would feel warm.

As the archangel took a step forward to make sure she was okay, the cellphone in his pocket rang. Even though the four of them could talk through their own channel of the angel network, they still used their phones more often than not.

“Hello?” he answered quietly, certain Emma was genuinely fast asleep.

“We found the Amazon nest. It’s gone, gone. Not, everyone packed up and left gone, but blown up gone, like someone set the antechamber with explosives while everyone was in it.”

“What?”

“It feels like infantile grace. Raphael says…. Hang on.”

“ _ What the Hell?!  _ **_How dare they!_ ** _ ” _

Despite Sam being the one holding the phone, Michael could hear Raphael’s angry and uncharacteristic shout from elsewhere in the room.

“What happened?” Michael asked when Lucifer didn’t say anything.

There was silence at the other end of the line followed by shuffling as someone moved and then the phone was passed.

“ _ They tortured and branded a nephil,”  _ Raphael hissed through the phone. “Gabriel’s not here to explain all the details of pagan magic, but the tools were blessed by a goddess, probably Harmonia herself.”

“Tell me what that means for the nephil, because you’re not making sense.”

“Let's start with holy water. The most common way to make it is with a rosary and a blessing. Anyone could theoretically make it, even if they don't believe in anything except demons because it works. But that's not the only way to make to make it.”

“It's not?”

“There's lots of lore on holy water. Lots of cultures have it and it's not only used in Abrahamic religions.”

“It's just as effective made other ways?” Michael asked.

“Yes. The pagans you've come across and hunted in the past have power because of belief. Some of those religions have artefacts of power because there was enough belief to power it.”

“What does that have to do with what happened?”

“A circle of holy fire would trap me or Gabriel or any other celestial being. It might trap Lucifer while only slowing you down. But it would hurt. It would burn our grace if we tried to escape a circle. It might kill a lesser angel, and even if it didn’t, it would do a significant amount of damage to them.”

“Isn't holy fire just burning holy oil, which comes from somewhere in Jerusalem?”

“Yes and no. A pagan blessed altar could produce a similar flame and some rituals could reproduce the effects. The Amazons used a goddess blessed ritual flame to heat a metal artifact to brand Amazon children, one of which was a Nephil!”

Michael didn't quite understand the significance. “So she was burned?”

“Her grace was burned with something like holy fire! A nephil child! Michael,  _ your _ nephil’s grace was burned so badly that it lashed out and  _ burned this place down. _ She’s injured, and terrified, and we need to find her!”

Michael blinked, not that Raphael could see it. “She’s here and she’s sleeping. I think you should get back here and make sure she’s okay.”

There was a sound of flapping wings, first through the phone then in the room as Raphael flew back to the hotel room without first turning off Sam’s phone. So Michael hung up and put the phone in his pocket.

It only took Raphael a second to land by the door and put Sam’s phone away. He walked towards Michael without taking his eyes off where Emma was sleeping. When he got to Michael, he wrapped his hands around his brother’s arm. “Mica,” he whispered, voice pained, “her grace is  _ aching _ .”

“How can we help her?” Michael asked quietly. Raphael was so close to freaking out, and he might have been except it wouldn’t do anyone any good. “Can you heal her?”

“She’s a baby, Mica! She shouldn’t need to be healed!”

Michael winced because Raphael was shouting in his ear. “Raph, we can’t change that now. But maybe you can heal her.” Michael walked towards Emma, pulling Raphael along with him as he did so. He sat on the edge of the bed, but decided that touching Emma without her consent would probably end badly. “Emma, sweetie, can you wake up for me?”

“Mmm!” the nephil groaned, blinking warily at them as she tightened deeper around herself.

“Emma, this is my brother, Raphael.” Michael nodded towards the other archangel so Emma could follow with her eyes. “He’s a healer. Would you let him heal your arm? It hurts, doesn’t it?”

“Hurts,” Emma agreed. Her arm wasn’t the only thing that hurt, but she wasn’t sure how she was supposed to explain that something inside hurt too.

Raphael sat on the other side of Emma, moving slowly so as not to scare her. “Will you let your dad hold your hand? It’ll make this easier.”

Emma looked confused, but she shifted her injured arm so that it was easier for Michael to join his fingers against hers, even as he raised an eyebrow at his brother.

Raphael mouthed the word grace, which Michael allowed to explain everything because in a way, it did, and then put a hand on Emma’s other wrist. Relieving the swelling and burned flesh where the brand had been placed was easy. It was a superficial injury inflamed by a conflict of magicks. What worried the healer most was the injury to Emma’s grace. That was small in size, but because Emma was a baby by angelic standards, her entire grace was small.

As Raphael had hoped, the skin to skin contact between Emma and Michael had caused Emma’s grace to move closer to the surface in an attempt at grace to grace contact. All celestials needed it, but baby nephilim and fledglings needed it even more because being surrounded by fully formed grace allowed them to grow in the peace and safety of a calm environment. Clearly, the Amazons could not provide a safe environment for a nephil.

“Does that feel better?” Michael asked quietly as the swelling diminished, along with the burn color around the brand.

Emma nodded. “Hurts deeper,” she added, because now that her arm didn’t hurt, she could feel all the pain the thing inside her was emitting. She pressed her head against Raphael’s knee, looking for something she didn’t have the words to describe. She would have slumped against her dad, but he was sitting on the wrong side of her and she wasn’t moving any further.

Michael brushed his free hand against Emma’s shoulder. “We know,” he said. “It’ll be okay.”

Raphael channeled his grace, brushing it against an uninjured edge of Emma’s grace so that he could encourage it to heal itself without causing further damage. “Do you feel that?” he asked as it reached out for him without moving away from Michael’s.

“Yes?” She felt the thing inside her moving around, and she wondered if this was when someone would explain exactly what it was.

“That’s your grace,” Raphael explained. “You’re a nephil, not an amazon.”

Emma wondered if that was why she had been so little compared to the other amazon initiates, but she decided she didn’t care enough to ask. “It talks to me. Is it why I can fly?”

Raphael moved his head to give her a look of disbelief. This two day old nephil had  _ flown?! _ If the amazons had not already been destroyed,  _ he would destroy them.  _ They had hurt and tortured a nephil child, causing her grace to not only react violently, but also forcing her to instinctually take flight towards somewhere safe. “Yes. Your dad is an archangel. So am I, as are our brothers, Lucifer and Gabriel, who will be back eventually. That makes you one of the nephilim.”

“Hmm.” Emma leaned her head back against him, closing her eyes as the  _ grace  _ inside her purred quietly. She could  _ almost  _ feel her dad’s, and Raphael’s, and the pain had started diminishing significantly so she could just enjoy the pleasant feeling.

  
  


The hotel opened, signifying Lucifer’s return. “I wouldn’t have minded being told you guys were okay.  _ I was worried!” _

“Emma, this is my brother Lucifer. Lucifer, this is Emma.”

Emma opened an eye just enough to commit the new arrival to memory and then closed it again. The grace surrounding her was warm and she didn’t want to move.

Lucifer eventually gave into his initial hesitancy and joined them in snuggling the infantile grace.

  
  
  


Gabriel’s later arrival was unexpected and much louder. The only warning they had to his arrival was the thundering of wing strokes, followed by a shout. “Where did the nephil come from?! I swear I wasn’t gone more than a few days!”

Emma curled closer towards Michael. She wasn’t afraid of the newcomer, but he was loud and startled her. Michael and Raphael noticed, pressing towards against her. He wasn’t here to hurt her, but it made her feel safe.

Gabriel failed to notice that he was making the child uncomfortable, still rambling onwards. “I’m supposed to be the rebel with the children, not you guys!”

Michael, Lucifer, and Raphael all blinked at Gabriel’s possible confession. “You have kids?!” Michael asked at the same time as Raphael asked, “Sleipnir, Hela, Fenrir, and Jormungandr do exist?!” and Lucifer was asking, “When can we meet them?!”

Gabriel blinked. “Yes, Raph. Those are my children, but you missed the twins, Vali and Narfi. Cute kids, even if they are a hundred going on twelve.” Gabriel blinked again, comprehending Lucifer’s question, which he could tell was about to be Raphael’s next question. “Why do you want to meet them? No, don’t answer that. The twins live with their mother, but the rest of them all have their jobs and lives, though I’m sure we can work something out if you’re sure about this.”

Emma crawled off the bed, turning so she’d land on her feet, and padded hesitantly towards Gabriel. Gabriel watched her curiously, but didn’t he didn’t move. She hesitated as she held out her hands to take one of his. He moved it towards her as a sign of consent, but let her initiate first contact. Emma wrapped both of her hands around his larger one and then back stepped towards the bed as though she were pulling on him. He followed.

When Emma reached the bed, she freed one hand to use to climb onto the bed and into Michael’s lap. There was room between Michael and Raphael for Gabriel, and Lucifer backed up to make more room.

With a raised eyebrow, Gabriel joined his siblings and his niece on the bed. Emma’s small grace reached out, initiating hesitant contact with the four of them at once. The contact was accepted immediately with barely contained excitement from Raphael and Gabriel, who wanted nothing more than to snuggle a nephil.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to warn that there's a scene where abortion is mentioned/alluded to and that it is tied to a decision that would be considered self harm. (But neither happen.) (Canon Jack tries to go back in time and kill his unborn self, but his prevented from doing so.)

It wasn't very long before Emma had the archangels wrapped around her finger, but she was a good kid and didn't try to take advantage of them.

There were a few rules in place, for her safety, they said. She could ride in the car, and she really liked that, but she wasn't allowed to hunt yet because she was a child and they refused to cheat her out of a childhood. She got a good look at some of their lore books and some of it was really interesting, but they were careful about what she got her hands on.

Castiel gave Emma a book of blank pages and a box of coloring crayons. That was even better because she got to draw whatever she wanted. If she tore out a page to show any of the archangels, they'd coo and put it on the fridge using any of the assorted magnets they'd recently started collecting.

Of the assorted magnets, Emma liked the little alphabet the best. One morning when Michael and Lucifer were conversing over a boring newspaper, Emma made up a game to play with herself where she made new words by using words already on the fridge.

Emma never noticed that Raphael was watching but a few days later, he showed her something he’d picked up. It was a board game called Scrabble. They played a game, and by the time they finished, Lucifer had returned.

“Scrabble?” he asked, seeing the name of the boardgame on the box.

They ended up playing two complete games and were halfway through a third when Michael finally came back.

The eldest archangel watched as Sam and Raphael got into a competition of who could play the longest word with the most points. At some point they even added words from other languages. Emma was a good sport. She was way behind in points, but it was just a game and the two archangels were taking it far more seriously than she was.

The game ended in a tie between the two archangels by luck of the draw.

“Can we play one more game?” Emma asked. She smiled at Michael. “Will you play too?”

Michael shrugged and joined them. Once they had determined who would go first (Michael) and drawn their tiles, Michael put a conjured book on the table. “Emma, you can play any real word you want to play. Lucifer, Raphael, if you want to play a word, it has to be found in this book.” The conjured book was Merriam Webster's Dictionary for Children.

Lucifer and Raphael agreed to the new rule because Michael would have made them stop playing. Emma won that game and they stopped after that because as much fun as playing with the nephil was, there were also other things that had to be done, like preparing food and researching a new hunt. As well as figuring out where Gabriel had disappeared to,  _ yet again. _

At some point they introduced the nephil to Bobby as Michael’s daughter. He was understandably confused, but he was also good with children. There was a thinly veiled threat at some point that if they hurt Emma, he’d kill them and a clarification to Emma that if she ever felt unwelcome or unsafe with the archangels, Bobby could and would protect her from them. She couldn’t exactly argue with that, and the sentiment was nice even if she loved the archangels and thought they were treating her way better than the amazons ever had.

Bobby even offered to babysit Emma and while the archangels were a little hesitant about that, Emma promised that she’d be fine. It wasn’t like she couldn’t defend herself if anything bad happened.  _ Not that it would.  _ But they did eventually take him up on it because as much as they loved Emma, they had missed having alone time with which they could hunt something more dangerous or watch a scary not-appropriate-for-children movie.

Which is what they were doing when the next life altering event occured.

* * *

The nephil knew he couldn't stand there and let the fallen and corrupted archangel siphon off his grace, but he knew he wasn't strong enough to fight back. Nephilim may have been stronger than their parents, but they must have had more training.

It should never have come to this. He had to fix it.  _ Rule 45. Clean up your mess.  _ This was worse than a mess, and surrendering would only make what was going to happen even worse. His birth had caused nothing but trouble for the family that had tried to raise him. They didn't deserve that. Their world didn't deserve what was coming next.  _ He didn't deserve them. _

Jack Kline chose not to surrender and not to fight back. He tugged on what remained of his grace and leaped with only a hint of a destination in mind.  _ If he prevented the rift from opening in the first place, the Apocalypse World would never try to destroy their universe. Kelly Kline would live if the fetus she carried never came to term.  _ He was an evil abomination. All his loved ones would die and it would be his fault.

It was dark, and he reappeared, invisible, behind the sleeping Kelly Kline. Did she even know she was pregnant yet? He didn't know what today was and he couldn't tell whether or not she was showing. 

_ “You don't have to do this.” _

Jack didn't recognize the ages old voice, filled with a time weary sorrow. “I've seen the future,” he whispered. “I can't allow it to happen. Any of it.”

“You are still a child, not a god, and not even gods dare to meddle in this way.” 

“I must,” Jack insisted. “I should never have been born. The nephilim of old were abolished for a reason. I shouldn't be an exception.”

There was a weary sigh, followed by silence. Jack didn't interrupt, because he knew it wouldn't take too kindly to that.

“An alternative, then? You've learned that not all universes are the same, but there should be no more rifts between them after this. Every universe is the way it is for a reason, and no one should interfere, especially not the likes of us.”

“An alternative to the ending of this life, without bringing yet another apocalypse here?” Jack’s tone of voice was almost eager. He didn't want to shed blood, but he would have killed the baby that would have become him if that's what it took.

“Aye.” The figure that Jack couldn't see clearly moved to stand in front of him. “I can send you elsewhere and ensure that no traveling between universes happens again. The babe will be born happy, and healthy, and no rift will open. Isn’t that what you want?”

Jack nodded. The rift opening into the apocalyptic universe had been what had started the cascading negative effects caused by his birth. “Angels will attack them, but what about the decreasing population that will result in heaven’s souls returning to Earth?”

“I’m sure someone will ask them to wake the Empty before Heaven falls apart, don’t you?” The entity gave the nephil what Jack could only assume was a sad smile. “Are you ready to go?”

When Jack nodded, the Entity did not so much vanish as Jack started falling. His grace was not entirely intact, but it didn't hurt, and he spread his wings to stop a hard landing. He could still hear the entity speaking to him.  _ “Someday, come find the other universe’s version of me.” _

Jack did not know where he was. He was in a room, and he was aware of a movie playing in the background. But the forefront of his attention was on the four beings tangled up together on the bed in front of them. There was not one or even two archangels in this room.  _ There were four.  _ And they were  _ staring  _ at him.

“Luci? When did you have a nephil? I seem to recall you saying you would never have any of your own, not with our own running around.”

Jack’s primary feathers extended, ready to flee. Only Cas had protected him from the angels who wanted to kill him for being the abomination that he was.  _ But Archangels?! _

“Never, Mica, don’t be absurd.”

Hearing that voice made his grace  _ ache _ . He knew that voice, but it couldn’t be the human that had been so kind to him, because  _ Lucifer was possessing him. _ Why had the Entity sent him here? This was what he’d tried to prevent! He wanted to shout, to rave, but he couldn’t because that would just make them smite him all the faster. But maybe that would be easier.  _ You can’t be Lucifer, you can’t be! Sam would never say yes to the monster that tortured him _ !

Four hurt expressions looked on at Jack, and he winced. Had he said that out loud? Were they going to smite him now? He could only watch on as the Sam that was also Lucifer climbed down off the bed as though to approach him and he couldn’t help but retreat a step when Lucifer came too close. But that didn’t seem to deter him from approaching.

Lucifer knelt, reaching out to put his hands on Jack’s shoulders. “I’m not possessing Sam,” he promised. “I have always been Sam. This isn’t like the universe you came from. Michael and I chose reincarnation, so I was born as Sam and he was born as Dean. We’re not going to hurt you, okay? We don’t hurt nephilim.”

Jack held really still because  _ Lucifer was touching him _ and he was afraid that if he moved Lucifer might attack him again. “ _ Why?!”  _ The question came out strangled, “ _ I’m an abomination. I went back in time to make sure I’d never be born but instead I ended up  _ here _. Why do you care?!”  _ The nephil let out an almost sob as he approached hysteria. “The Michael in apocalypse world  _ killed  _ Gabriel! Sam told him to keep running, but he wouldn’t listen and then Lucifer kidnapped me. He was going to  _ steal _ my grace but I couldn’t let him and then I was flying and falling and…”

Lucifer didn’t know what else to do, so he wrapped his arms around the little nephil that was both his and not his. “We are not going to hurt you. I don’t know where you were that someone decided nephilim were abominations, but I assure you, we don’t feel that way. Mica has a daughter, Emma, and she’s a sweet little thing and I think she’ll like you. And Gabriel has a few children of his own too. You’re not the only nephil here, and none of you are abominations, promise.”

Gabriel slid off the bed, and Jack had to brace himself because he looked just like  _ his  _ Gabriel and he didn't want to think about him. But this Gabriel looked a little softer, and made himself look less threatening by making himself look even smaller, and he was still approaching and then he was right behind him.

“It'll be okay, kiddo,” Gabriel whispered, rubbing Jack on the shoulder in what should have been a comforting manner. 

_ “Don't worry, kiddo,”  _ his  _ Gabriel whispered right before Sam and Lucifer had shown up and shit hit the fan. _

Jack screamed in rage and hurt and pain and emotional feelings he didn’t have the vocabulary to describe. He’d wanted it to end. He’d been ready to face death and he’d wanted it to mean something and he’d failed.  _ He’d just ended up in yet another alternative universe with archangels he couldn’t understand. And that was only the beginning. Who knew what would happen next. _

_ He felt his grace like a tumultuous sea beneath his skin.  _ Jack always felt closer to it when he was emotionally charged. Things began to fly past as his emotions spiraled more and more out of control, and there was someone talking nearby, but he couldn’t understand any of it, and he didn't know if he even wanted to understand.

And just like that, someone else was touching him. He didn’t recognize the grace. Lucifer was still holding him and Gabriel had backed away, though he could feel his grace, and Michael hadn’t moved from the bed. The eldest archangel must have recognized that his presence would not help to destress the situation.

The grace of the fourth individual was like the rock face of a cliff or a pebble in the ocean. Sturdy against the winds and surviving even in the swiftest current. Not necessarily unchanged, but coming out as something even prettier, polished and worn down, but never destroyed. Jack couldn’t help but wonder what stage of the process this archangel, for that’s what he was, there was no mistaking that power, was in. Was he the cliff, the boulder, or the pebble? More importantly though, why didn’t he know anything about a fourth archangel? He only knew of Michael, Lucifer, and Gabriel.

_ “My name is Raphael, Nephil. I’m not going to hurt you, I promise. I’d like you to stop throwing things before you hurt yourself, but your grace is frightened and stressed, so it’s okay if you can’t yet. Can you tell me your name?” Jack heard the voice inside his head, and he knew it had to belong to the rock. Raphael’s tone held no anger, or disappointment, or fear. It was even, with a touch of concern and a dash of love Jack was currently incapable of understanding. Raphael wasn’t just a rock. Jack thought he might just be the glue holding his family together, but it was too soon to tell yet whether or not that was accurate. Sam or Castiel had been the glue of what he had believed to be his own family, but now he would never see them again. Had it been worth it? _

“Jack,” the nephil whispered. He couldn’t tell whether he was speaking aloud or into the grace of the rock, but he was sure the other could hear it.

_ “You’re overthinking your arrival, Jack. I swear that we won’t hurt you. Gabriel apologizes for not thinking when he used that epithet. If Michael and Lucifer are so different from their counterparts in your world, it did not occur to anyone that Gabriel would not have been. I take it that I am not familiar to you?” _

Jack shook his head.  _ “Castiel could count the number of angels left in heaven on two hands, at the end. I do not believe you were one of them.” _

Raphael did not think so either, for other reasons, but he was not going to explain them to this nephil. The child had ended up in this world for a reason, it would not do to question the purpose too far. They would take care of him. Raphael did not like the picture he had painted on how he had been treated in the past. It would not happen again, not under his watch, and his brothers would not allow it either. He took another step closer to the child and wrapped his arms around him, joining Lucifer’s embrace. Gabriel had not helped matters, but if the child had watched the Gabriel from his own universe sacrifice himself, then that made sense.

Jack felt as his grace settled, embraced by both Lucifer’s and Raphael’s. Now that he was less agitated, he could feel the difference between this Lucifer and the one from home. This grace was cleaner, purer, untainted in a way unimaginable.  _ This was not grace that had ever been trapped in a cage or tainted by a Mark. It felt almost like his own in a comforting way. _

* * *

Adam Young was chasing Dog down the street, just as he had done almost every day since his birthday, when he felt the  _ shift.  _ He was sure it was a dimensional shift, but he wasn’t sure what that meant, exactly. There was someone new, important, who hadn’t been there before. He didn’t know yet what their significance was, but he was sure that it would make itself known eventually.

It was Friday. And like every Friday since the Apocalypse-that-wasn't, Adam Young was on his way for tea at the old bookstore that most people thought belonged to Zira Fell. But Adam was not most people.

Adam was the Antichrist,  (the Adversary, Destroyer of Kings, Angel of the Bottomless Pit, Great Beast that is called Dragon, Prince of This World, Father of Lies, Spawn of Satan and Lord of Darkness)  but he'd been raised by typical middle class parents, with no interference by either good or evil, so he was just your very typical eleven year old whose interests included watching the world not end.

And he knew exactly what Zira Fell and Crowley were. But Adam didn't really believe in true evil, and both the demon and the angel were kind to him, so Adam looked forward to the weekly tea sessions.

They taught him a little bit about his powers each week, but Adam didn't use them for the most part. And they never mentioned the passage of time,  _ or lack thereof. _

Adam was knocking on the bookstore door before he realized that he'd arrived. It took a few minutes before Zira opened the door and ushered him inside. And just as Adam had since the first week he came, he said, “Heel, Dog.”

“A customer, Angel? Need me to send them on their way?” came a voice from the backroom.

“It's Adam, Crowley. Just like it is every Friday,” Zira replied. “Would you like a cup of tea, Adam?”

“Yes, please.” Adam glanced at Dog as the hound followed him inside. There was a box of books by the door that he didn't recognize and he reached for a book on top. “Winchester Gospels,” he whispered. “Let the Good Times Roll.”

“Adam? You alright?” 

“Yeah.” Adam hesitated as Zira plucked the book out of his hand. There was something important about it, something he couldn’t place. “I had a strange dream last night. This… nephil… was trying to ensure that he would never be born, and I had to stop it because that’d create a time paradox that wasn’t better than the world he was trying to fix. So I brought him here. But I also prevented any more inter-universal shenanigans to prevent future paradoxes.”

“Wouldn’t that cause him to not exist because the self that he was before he came here can’t get here?” Zira asked.

“Nope. He still remembers everything that happened to him, so that’s his earlier self. He doesn’t deserve to cease to exist because of stupid paradox rules, and it’s not like a version of him exists here so there’s no way to break the universe that way, either.  _ He deserves his second chance _ .”

“If you’re sure,” Zira placated, putting the book back in the box. He wasn’t sure exactly where they had come from, they’d been there when he and Crowley had woken up that morning. He’d heard of the Winchester Gospels, of course, they were  _ mostly  _ true, except not as true as they probably would have been in another universe. (He was the proud owner of another, rarer set, that was entirely true. And it was nice to see that his oldest brothers could get along.) This box of Winchester Gospels, however, was not a set with which the angel was familiar. Leviathans? Tablets with a word of God? But most concerning, of course, was the Nephil. Was there really room for two Antichrists in the same universe? Or  _ three, if one counted that one kid, Jesse Turner. _ Good Incarnate, Evil Incarnate, and Humanity Incarnate? 

“The tea is going to get cold if you don’t come serve it, Angel.”

“Right away, sorry.” Aziraphale headed towards the back room. “Adam? Tea?”

“Yes, please,” the child repeated, and followed the angel into the back room. “Who were the nephilim?”

Zira wasn’t facing Adam, so Adam didn’t see his face blanch, but Crowley’s face also paled. “Where’d you hear that word?”

Adam shrugged. “I’m not sure. I just know that it’s important.”

“We’ve talked about your powers and the things that you can do with them, and you’ve seen for yourself some of the things that you can do,” Zira started. “But we haven’t really talked about why you have them. You’re the antichrist, yes, but another word for what you are is nephil. Lucifer himself was an angel, before he was Fallen. Even now, I suppose he’d be a fallen angel and the children of angels are nephilim.”

“Okay.” Adam took a seat at the table, stroking Dog’s back as the creature laid down beside his chair. Just as it had every week.

The angel poured three cups of tea and offered a plate of scones and chocolate biscuits. Adam took one of each snack and sipped his tea. He hoped things wouldn’t change too much. They’d been having tea for a thousand Fridays, and he could easily see them performing the same ritual for the next thousand Fridays. As long as nothing changed too drastically, but he didn’t think it would. Nothing changed, and he preferred it that way. He liked being eleven. It was the perfect age.

* * *

“You have to come meet Emma,” Michael said at some point. “Bobby offered to keep an eye on her today and she seemed pleased with the idea.”

“Who’s Emma?” Jack asked, some trepidation forming.

“She’s my daughter,” Michael replied. “She’s going to love you, come on.”

Jack had never flown with someone before, and the experience was not one he was sure he liked very much. He knew who the Bobby from the Apocalypse World was, of course, but not the Bobby from his home universe, so he felt some hesitancy towards meeting this one.

When they arrived in the edge of the living room, Bobby was sitting in his recliner with a magazine that had a car on the front. The tv was playing an old Tom and Jerry episode and there was a girl in what could only be described as something like a nest on the sofa. There were strewn pillows under and around her and she was wrapped in multiple fleece blankets. The blonde had fallen asleep, an empty bowl of what had been popcorn resting on the floor.

Bobby put the magazine down when he heard them arrive. “Hello, boys,” he said. He looked at Jack. “Who’s the new arrival?”

“This is Jack,” Lucifer, Sam, said. “He’s a nephil from another universe, but he’s here to stay.”

“Hello,” Jack said, still frightened.

The girl, Emma, stirred from her nest. “Dad!” She climbed out of her blanket nest and approached them, quickly embracing Michael.

“Em, this is Jack. Jack, this is my daughter, Emma.”

Jack smiled shyly as Emma grinned. “I get a brother?!” She turned towards Jack, faster than the second nephil was expecting, causing him to jerk backwards on instinct. Gabriel’s foot was in the way, tripping him and sending tumbling backwards. Emma had intended to hug him, so she also lost her footing.

Jack squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for an impact he didn’t want. He didn’t want to be here. He was curious about these people, but wanted to be  _ home  _ more. He missed Cas and Mary, Sam, and even Dean, as much as the latter hadn’t liked him in the beginning, that had changed somewhat once Castiel had returned from the Empty. And then he’d ended up in the Apocalypse World and everything had fallen apart. He hoped the entity that had brought him here hadn’t lied, that the future he’d created for what would now be considered an alternate version of himself would have the better life he’d been trying to create for it.

The impact never happened. Nothing touched him. There was the rustling of fabric and a quiet exclamation, followed by a moment of silence. It took Jack a minute to realize that there would be no impact and that he had held his breath while he’d been waiting. Opening his eyes revealed that Michael had grabbed the back of Emma’s shirt to keep her from falling. Raphael had crouched next to him, which had been the cause for the rustling fabric.

“How old are you?” Raphael asked. There was no hint of accusation in his tone, merely genuine curiosity.

The answer didn’t come instantaneously, as it had before. Had the time in Apocalypse World been different than the age he would be if he had not gone there? What about the part where he had gone back in time before coming here? Should he subtract that time from his age? No, probably not. Raphael most like wanted how old he was by the number of days his mind had experienced. That number was easier to determine. “10 months, 2 weeks, and 4 days.” Then he added, “I was born on May 18th, 2017.”

Bobby whistled from where he was standing. “From another universe and traveled back in time.”

Jack tilted his head. “What year is it here?”

Emma grinned. Did she always grin? Jack wondered. “It’s March 2011. I’m about five months.”

Jack wasn’t sure what all had happened in his home universe before he’d been born. Castiel’s wings had not always been damaged, surely. Had he still been able to fly in 2011? When did the Winchester brothers first meet Castiel?

Emma kneeled on the floor in front of Jack. “I know you’re scared because this is a new place and you don’t know us yet, but may I hug you? When I don’t understand things and my emotions get all confusing, I like it when I’m hugged because it feels safe.”

Jack was reticent because none of his family had really been big on hugging, but he didn't want to hurt Emma's feelings so he nodded.

Emma wrapped her arms around him. It felt a little claustrophobic but it also felt like he wasn't alone.


	5. Chapter 5

The archangels realized they wouldn't all fit in the impala and that a more permanent base was mandatory. They would not raise Emma and Jack in hotels. It wasn't good enough.

Jack talked about how his hunter family had lived in a bunker in Kansas, but he didn't know how they had found out about it.

Gabriel remembered killing a demon knight of Hell after it wiped out all the men of letters including Henry Winchester. The bunker had been their headquarters. Four archangels could probably figure out how to get in.

* * *

They did. It wasn't child proof at first, regardless of what Jack argued, so Bobby babysat some more, which he didn't mind at all.

One day the archangels came back to find Emma and Jack curled up together in the nest on the couch, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang playing quietly in the background as they slept. Bobby was reading from some car magazine.

“Let them sleep. They played hard today. I have a quick hunt for you in Nebraska. I think I can handle the kids for another day.”

“You sure?”

“Who the Hell do you think raised you and Sam? You burned down my barn when I left you alone for ten minutes once. Your children are surprisingly more well behaved.”

“Raphael thinks Jack shows signs of ptsd and is far too good at hiding it. Bobby, why would anyone do such a thing to a child?”

“I don't have all the answers, kiddo. Maybe it doesn't matter. We're all just doing our best to do right by them. It's all we can do.” Bobby looked at the sleeping children. Emma was a picture of contentment, the ever present grin still there even in sleep. Jack was more reserved, kept to himself, tried not to be a bother. He was more relaxed when he slept, but there was usually a battle to get him to relax because he'd been under the misguided belief that he could survive on neither sleep nor food. For short times sure, but they were still children who were growing.

* * *

It didn't take much longer to finish cleaning and organizing the bunker. There was one big library and the hazardous stuff in the basement would not explode. Needless to say, the basement was warded so the kids couldn't get in. They'd be grounded forever if they tried. For their own safety.

Emma and Jack picked rooms next to each other and the archangels picked five rooms at the other end of the hall. They picked five because as much as they needed their own spaces, they weren't going to give up on space shared. All grace needed it to be healthy.

Gabriel magicked that room bigger and a low mattress to take up most of it so there was enough room for four archangels and two nephilim and then some leftover.

Emma fell asleep cuddling with the archangels most nights. It made her grace purr and she liked that feeling.

Jack spent every night in his room. He shut the door when Emma joined the archangels and didn't open it until long after everyone had started moving around again. He didn't sleep for most of it though. He didn't have a laptop or anything like he’d had before, so he mostly stared at the ceiling. Sleep never came easily.

This went on for weeks. It reached the point where whenever he entered a room with the archangels in it, his grace stirred beneath his skin and he didn't like it, so he tried to avoid them. That only worked so well too because they lived there too and were big on being part of their children’s lives. Jack didn't understand that either. His Dean would have been happy if he'd locked himself in his room forever.

He tried that anyway, and it worked for a about an hour because then Lucifer brought breakfast, just like Sam had, and Jack wanted to cry.

Lucifer put the tray of food on the bedside table and sat on the edge of the bed. “Raphael wanted to come because he thought his would be the most welcome face. But my grace should feel the most familiar so I said I would.”

Jack was facing the wall and he didn't move. If he wasn't looking at Lucifer, he could almost pretend this was his Sam. “Why are you here?”

“Your grace is suffering. You're starving yourself and we're worried about you.”

“Nothing's wrong with me! I'm fine!”

Lucifer sighed. “Are you familiar with wasting illnesses?”

“Sure.They cause people to waste away, their muscles atrophy, fat reserves diminish, eventually people die, but not before they start looking kind of like skeletons.”

Lucifer nodded, not that Jack could see it. “Celestial beings can get them too. Raphael’s been on Earth awhile, he decided he wanted to live a human life, but chose not to tear out his grace to do so. He just hid his grace deep inside himself and made himself grow as a human child would. A few years ago, I was still just Sam Winchester and Michael was Dean, and Dean sold his soul because I died. So the contract came due, and I thought he was dead and gone forever, and I probably would have wasted away until I had joined him, but Gabriel found Raphael and they kept me from doing anything like that. But when Michael came back, Raphael never told him who he really was, so he denied himself something essential to the wellbeing of our kind. He slept a lot and the light of his grace came really close to going out.”

“Angels can just fade away?”

“That’s right. It’s never happened, but it could. There’s a few things celestial beings and their children need, Jack, and affection is one of them.”

“My grace feels weird,” Jack admitted quietly. 

“I’m sure it does.” Lucifer sighed. “I know you haven’t initiated any physical contact with us, but may I touch you? Your grace isn’t happy and I don’t know how to help it without giving it what it wants.”

Jack shrugged. He’d been avoiding this, but he couldn’t really say no. Why couldn’t he go back to the other universe? At least his Sam made sense. And his missed Castiel.

Lucifer pulled Jack into a hug. Jack’s grace reacted by reaching for contact, terrifying Jack. What was his grace doing? Where was it going? And all he could think of was the cold blade against his neck.  _ “I...I don't need ya. I just need your power.” He could remember the pain from the scratch and the instant where he’d felt his grace move, when he’d thought he was going to lose it for good. _

Jack screamed. He jerked instinctually, kicking against Lucifer’s hold on him. He heard the archangel grunt, either in surprise or pain.  _ Oh no, he’d lashed out, he shouldn’t have done that, now he was going to be in so much trouble.  _ His wings were spreading out and he was jumping without knowing where he was trying to go. He could hear Lucifer’s placations, “Come back! We can talk about this, where are you going?” But he didn’t believe it, was already gone. He flew through the bunker on the human plane and another plane, looking for any way to cross to another universe. If there was any place he could break the wall between two universes, it was going to be here and he  _ knew  _ he just wanted to go home.

The nephil knocked over Emma in his haste, before slamming his head into the metaphysical wall he was trying to break. He bounced backwards and could hear someone shouting, so he slammed forward again, harder this time, but the veil between the dimensions didn’t so much as budge and he was thrown backwards onto the floor. The pain was minimal, if shocking, and Jack couldn’t keep tears from coming as he fled, this time leaving the bunker and unsure of where he was going.

Fully in the other plane, he saw things in colors of aura, and there was a green line he felt the need to follow. His wings beat harder as he tried to pick up speed. He flew through a huge dome the same color as though passing through a translucent wall. It caused him to return to the human plane temporarily, but he was still flying, now descending, and he was wrenched forcefully back into the human plane as he phased through a building wall and crashed headfirst into a bookcase.

Jack sobbed harder, and didn’t try to move as his wings wrapped around him in an attempt to provide comfort like a child’s soft blanket. But he didn’t feel comfort.  _ He wanted to go home, damnit! _

“What was that?” someone asked. Jack wasn’t sure where the noise was from, but he didn’t try to move, or speak. He couldn’t stop the tears, either.

“It’s my friend, Jack. He had a bit of a rough morning, is all.” This voice was childish, but somehow Jack still recognized it as the voice of the entity that had sent him here in the first place. How had a child passed itself off as such a powerful being? “Zira, do you have any tea left?”

Jack climbed to his feet, wings relaxed behind him. He wiped his face, and then headed towards the room where the voices were coming from. “Hello?”

The nephil found himself in the back room a moment later. There was a man wearing sunglasses and a kid that looked about the same age as Emma appeared sitting at the table. There was a large dog under the table that didn’t look like any dog Jack had ever seen before, as well as another man standing at the kitchenette pouring tea from a kettle into a cup.

“... What…?” Jack blinked once, then again. They weren’t humans. None of them were humans. He could see the white wings of the person at the kitchenette, and the child had the same presence as Emma, if not more similar to his own, and there was no mistaking that the third was a demon. Why did this look like the start of a bad joke? Wasn’t that what Dean would say? Why was he here?  _ He wanted Dean and Sam and Castiel. _

“Why don’t you sit across from me,” the kid suggested. “I’m Adam Young.”

Jack tilted his head as Adam turned to look at him. He had curly blonde eyes and eyes as blue as his own. He made his way towards the seat. “Why did you bring me here?” he asked. “I want to go  _ home _ .”

“I’m sorry,” Adam said, except his tone wasn’t very sincere. “It was another version of myself that brought you here, the one from your home universe, and he’s changed the rules. I can't send you back because no one can travel between universes anymore. It simply isn't possible by any means.”

“I have to go back,” Jack whispered. “I have to.”

“You can't. And really, both you and the nephil you would have been are better for this. The Michael in that one universe can't leave. It's like he's in time out. But more permanent. And isn't that what he deserves for trying to take Dean?”

“But I'll never see Dean or Sam again! Or Castiel!”

Adam smiled sadly. “You're under the misconception that just because they're different on the outside, that means they're different on the inside. But Sam and Dean were made to be the perfect vessels for their designated archangel. So similar that it should be difficult to determine one from the other, especially since this Lucifer does not suffer from any kind of corruption. Your Sam was just like Lucifer could have been. In this universe, they're just one and the same. And younger, who've made fewer mistakes than the people you remember.”

Jack sniffled. “You're saying I should give them a chance.”

Aziraphale walked back to the table with the new cup of tea. “You might surprise yourself. And you should let them coddle you a little more, your grace is looking pretty famished. Tea and biscuits?”

“Okay.” Jack took the offered tea cup and picked out a chocolate cookie. The cookie was still warm, and the tea was delicious.

“I'm Aziraphale,” the angel said while Jack ate. “If you need anything, you're more than welcome to swing by. And that's Crowley. Not the Crowley who considers himself the king of Hell.”

“That little upstart stole my name,” the demon muttered darkly.

“Thank you.” Jack finished the snack and thought about the archangels at the bunker. They treated him well, and he hadn't been very nice, or sociable. But maybe he could talk to Raphael about how he was feeling. At the very least, the healer could probably explain what his grace doing and whether or not it would really leave his body. “I should get back.”

They wished him well, and Aziraphale made him take a Tupperware of desserts with him for his sister and the other archangels if they wanted any.

Sister. Jack spent the whole flight back contemplating that word and what it meant to him. He'd have to apologize to Emma, after he talked to Raphael.

Jack flew directly to Raphael, and found the healer alone in the room he called his own. The healer was sitting on the bed facing the open doorway, then he landed in the doorway.

“Jack!” Raphael exclaimed. He was going to continue, but reconsidered when Jack flinched. He sighed. “Jack, we're not mad and you're not in danger from us.” He sent a quick thought to the other archangels who were all out looking for Jack, letting them know the child had returned. “We were worried about you because we weren't sure where you'd gone or if you'd come back.”

Jack took a step forward, then hesitated until Raphael gently patted the space next to him. “I tried to go back to the universe I came from, but I ran into the entity that brought me here in the first place.” Raphael didn't say anything, so Jack continued, “I can't go back. All means of travelling from one universe to another no longer work. He said… He said I've been too hard on Michael and Lucifer. That I can't see who they are now because I'm blinded by who they were in the other universe.”

“We only know what you've told us,” Raphael said. “But it can't have been good.”

Jack pulled his knees to his chest. “My biological father in the other universe was Lucifer. But he didn't raise me, Cas and the Winchesters did. And Lucifer… he was insane. He cut me with an angel blade, he was going to take it for himself.” Jack shuddered. “We didn't see it, but… He ate the angels in the alternate universe I got trapped in. He devoured their grace and if I hadn't jumped back in time, he would have taken mine too.” Jack shuddered again. “I know… I know I'm safe here. But I try to touch any of you and my grace starts moving around. I know it's famished, that I'm starving it, but it starts moving towards something and it feels like that moment I thought I was going to die.” Jack felt the tears start up again, baring his soul to Raphael  _ hurt,  _ but it was necessary.

Raphael wrapped his arms around Jack’s shoulders. He felt the nephil flinch and the child’s grace trying to move towards his in the way identical to how Emma’s grace, and his siblings’ grace tried to make contact with another’s. He admonished it gently, told it to hold still if it didn’t want him to pull away, and it stilled. Once it was still, and Jack didn’t seem as inclined to panic as he had when Lucifer had tried this, he let his grace meet Jack’s. His grace had to do all the work of surrounding Jack, but the nephil was calm and his grace was happier, if not yet content. “Is this better?” he asked quietly.

The nephil hummed sleepily in agreement and the archangel smiled as he realized that it wouldn’t take more than a moment or two longer before he was asleep. This was one problem solved for the short term, thankfully, but there would of course be other problems to arise. Being told the child had been in the middle of war only served to further his supposition that Jack probably had ptsd.

* * *

Jack was more open to joining them in their snuggle piles after that, as long as his grace didn’t try to move, which Raphael had explained to each of the other archangels individually, as well as talking to Emma about how her brother was fragile and there were certain things she couldn’t do, like hugging Jack if he didn’t know she was there. They didn’t lie to her about why that was the case, but they were careful about how they explained it because she was a child and neither she, nor Jack, should have been in a place to deal with those kinds of things.

Which came back to the rules Emma had to learn. The newest of which was,  _ If Jack screams, you stop. _ Doesn’t matter if you’re ticking him, playing hide and seek, or putting something on his plate. It hadn’t happened yet, but Emma understood that Jack had come from a Bad Place and that you had to be careful with him. There was a rule for Emma too, about fire. But Emma was pretty sure that was more for Raphael than for her because despite the branding incident, she was kind of fascinated by fire.  _ Maybe that’s why there was a rule about it. _

There were also some more general rules. Like them not leaving the bunker without telling the archangels where they were going. Jack got a free pass the first time because it hadn’t been a rule yet, but they would be grounded if they broke it again. That was the best thing about the archangels, they promised new rules wouldn’t be retroactive.

The cookies from Jack’s new friend were delicious. And Jack apologized to Emma for knocking her over.

As far as the archangels could tell, both nephilim were capable of reading, although they were less sure about Jack. He never wanted to play scrabble and he never touched the magnets on the refrigerator, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. But the archangels decided it was probably about time to introduce some academic subjects, starting with Enochian.

* * *

“No!” Jack shouted. The tan crayon he was holding broke and he threw the pieces at the wall on the other side of the room.

Emma looked up as the pieces flew past her face. She’d been drawing Enochian sigil after Enochian sigil with an orange crayon. 

Distracted by Jack’s shout, Emma’s hand slipped,. The lines in her notebook appeared on the ceiling and her notebook burst into flame. Panicking, she shoved it off her lap, sending it sliding across the floor at the same time as a blonde haired boy and a small dog fell from the ceiling.

“What the bloody hell is going on!” the boy exclaimed.

Jack tilted his head at the newcomer. “Adam? What are you doing here?”

The three archangels in the room, Michael, Raphael, and Lucifer, stared at the kid and his dog. They could tell by looking at him that he was a nephil, but only if they looked really hard because he was somehow hiding his presence. But that didn’t explain how Jack knew him.

Adam looked up. “I’m thinking that elaborate summoning spell on the ceiling has something to do with it. Why are you scrying?”

“Not scrying,” Emma said. “I’m sorry, I was practicing a fire sigil.”

“Who are you?” Michael asked.

Adam glanced at the archangels. He could tell that they were angels, but he wasn’t sure beyond that. “I’m Adam Young.”

Lucifer gasped. “You’re the antichrist from Good Omens! Did Emma summon you from the book?”

Adam rolled his eyes. “I am very real. I live in Tadfield.”

“You’re eleven.”

“Yep! I’ve been 11 for almost eleven hundred Fridays.” Adam smiled. “I quite like it. It’s the perfect age.”

“You’re from this dimension? Tadfield exists?”

“Lucifer?” Jack interrupted nervously. “Adam’s the one that brought me to this universe.”

“Let’s say for a moment that I believe Good Omens is true, which I don’t, but let’s pretend that I do. Who’s nephil child is Adam?”

“Yours!” Adam exclaimed. “But you don’t have to figure out how that’s possible because I’m four years older than Sam Winchester and it doesn’t matter.”

The wards of the bunker shuddered. Adam glanced at the ceiling. “I bet that’s Zira and Crowley. I was just entering Zira’s bookstore when the summoning sigil brought me here. They’ll be worried.”

“Aziraphale and Crowley are  _ also real?! _ ” Lucifer looked incredulously at the nephil.  _ “And they’re here?!” _

Michael rolled his eyes. “You can fangirl later. I’ll go make sure they know their nephil is unharmed.”

“I’m not  _ their  _ nephil! That would be weird!”

The eldest archangel slipped out of the room, leaving Lucifer and Raphael to wonder what to do about the new nephil  _ and  _ his-  _ hellhound?  _ They had no idea why or how Jack knew him, other than Jack’s statement about Adam being the reason Jack had come to their universe in the first place. But for the most part, that left more questions than answers.

The small dog, that looked quite a lot like a jack russell, barked and then ran towards Jack.

“Dog,” Adam said, ready to give his pet a command along the lines of not doing that, but he changed his mind when he saw Jack reach out to pet Dog, looking a little more relaxed than he had a moment earlier. His appearance had clearly interrupted something, but he wasn’t sure yet what it had been. He would find out.

“So you really averted an apocalypse?” Lucifer asked.

Adam glanced at the mix of human soul and archangel grace wrapped so tightly together that it was impossible to tell where one started and the other began. “Mr. Fell always says one shouldn’t believe everything they read, but that particular story is about as accurate as it can be. I’m just a kid, but Tadfield is still under my protection.”

Lucifer didn’t know what to say to that, so he just glanced at Raphael, who shrugged. After a moment, the younger archangel started picking up crayons off the floor.

Emma walked towards Jack and the dog. “Are you okay?” she asked quietly, settling on the opposite side from Jack and putting a hand tentatively on Dog’s side.

Jack answered neither verbally or nonverbally, ignoring Emma in favor of scratching Dog’s head. What did being okay even mean? Doing anything else was better than struggling through sigils he didn’t understand. Even the sigils that were the same looked different most of the time. How was he supposed to recreate them when there were an infinite number of them? It wasn’t  _ possible. _

“Jack, what’s the matter?” Emma asked quietly.

The younger nephil shook his head. He didn’t want to talk about it. Words were hard.

The two nephilim continued petting the dog and after a few more minutes, Michael led the way back into the room, followed by two figures. They were the white haired angel, Aziraphale, and the black haired fallen angel, Crowley.

Adam looked at the doorway as Michael and the others entered. “Zira! Crowley! Are you here to take me home?”

“We don’t have to leave yet,” Aziraphale said. “We were just worried when you vanished from the bookshop.”

“Okay.” Adam returned his attention back to the other two nephilim. They were still giving Dog far too much attention, but with a roll of his eyes, he walked over to join them. Dog was wagging his tail and clearly enjoying being the center of focus. “I’m Adam,” he said when he was standing next to the girl whose name he didn’t know.

“Hello,” she said. “I’m Emma.”

Jack and Adam eventually sat on the ground instead of hovering around the dog, but after a little while Emma walked back to where the adults were sitting in mojo’d chairs and climbed into Michael’s lap.

“Hey, Sweetpea,” Michael said, shifting an arm automatically to better support the kid sitting on his lap. “Everything alright?”

Emma made an affirmative hum and watched the adults quietly from her perch.

Adam Young watched as Emma settled onto her dad’s lap and then looked back at Jack. “Do you want to talk about what happened earlier?” he asked quietly.

“Not really,” Jack said. “We’re learning Enochian and all the symbols look different, even when they’re the same. It’s all gibberish and I don’t like it.”

“That’s not good.” Adam considered. “Did anyone teach you to read English?”

Jack shook his head. “Just looks like weird moving symbols to me too.”

Adam didn’t say anything to that, and Jack didn’t continue, so they just pet Dog for a little while longer.

  
  


When Emma had fallen asleep in Michael’s lap, Aziraphale stood. “Thank you for letting us drop by, but I think we’ll take Adam home now before his parents start to wonder where he’s gone.”

“You’re all welcome to come back whenever you’d like,” Raphael said. “It’s nice to see some new faces, and I’m sure that Gabriel would love to meet you as well. I’m not sure where he’s gotten off to today.”

“I can show you all out.” Lucifer stood, and started leading the way to the door. Adam joined them. Dog gave Jack one last dejected look before following.

Adam walked ahead of Aziraphale and Crowley, and before Lucifer could lead them all the way to the exit of the bunker, he said, “I think Jack has dyslexia.”

Lucifer glanced back at the nephil. “What makes you say that?”

“He said the Enochian sigils all look different, even the ones that are the same, and he said that English letters look like ‘moving symbols’ which isn’t that uncommon of a description of what dyslexic people see.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, have a good evening.” Lucifer held the front door open and watched as the angel, demon, nephil, and dog disappeared from sight as they flew back to Tadfield. Then he headed back inside.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please Read The Tags and proceed at your own risk. This chapter contains references to suicide and self-harm (on the part of Jack Kline). Jack's suicide attempt is off-screen, but is discussed (not in great detail). This is a work of fiction and is not true to how this would be handled in real life.

After Adam Young and his angels left the bunker, Jack had left to hide in his room. Michael took the still sleeping Emma to the big nest, while Raphael and Lucifer discussed Jack’s dyslexia diagnosis in what Jack had referred to as The War Room exactly once. The archangels had instantly recoined it as The Meeting Room because that was much more friendly, and more importantly, Child Safe.

They wanted nothing more than to provide a safe place for their children. It didn’t matter that Jack wasn’t borne of one of them personally, he was  _ theirs _ . And they all loved Emma.

Knowing that people wearing their faces had hurt Jack hurt  _ them _ . They would  _ never  _ have hurt Jack, not for any reason ever, and Raphael especially wished that there was anything they could have done to prevent Jack from any and all suffering. But there was nothing they could do, nor was there any use dwelling on it.

So they had to move forward and take any new developments in stride. Jack probably had ptsd and dyslexia, and the only thing left to do was to keep moving forward.

Raphael knew quite a bit more about dyslexia than Lucifer did. Raphael was  _ the  _ archangel of healing, after all, and Adam Milligan had wanted to go to med school. But that didn't mean Raph had much insight as to how a nephil could  _ have  _ dyslexia, although Lucifer recalled that Dean Winchester may have also had childhood dyslexia.

They couldn’t really plan a course of action with Michael taking a nap and Gabriel somewhere not even god knows where. So Lucifer went to check on Michael and Emma while Raphael went to check on Jack.

Raphael was just about to knock on Jack’s door when there was a loud crash from inside. The door was locked, but that didn’t keep the worried archangel out.

The sight Raphael walked in on was not what he was expecting because it was so much  _ worse. _

There was blood  _ everywhere  _ and Jack was curled up on the bed bawling into a pillow. The archangel could tell that the blood was Jack’s, but the nephil did not seem to be sobbing in pain. It took him a second to determine that the source of the crash had been an object hitting the wall.

The item on the floor looked like a knife, but Raphael could see the power radiating from it stronger than any mortal object and possibly more powerful than a standard angel blade. Given how superficial Jack was acting like his wounds were, the archangel of healing had no difficulty guessing what had occurred.

Raphael reached to pick the blade up off the floor, but as his fingers closed around the hilt, it shocked him. That was the last piece of the puzzle he needed to understand exactly what had happened.

Every angel and archangel was capable of creating or summoning a blade all of their own. It wasn’t so much taking their grace and creating something from it as it was a physical manifestation of their grace. Like their wings, except while the purpose of their wings was endless as far as anything non offensive, the sole purpose of the angel blade was a physical manifestation of the sheer offensive power a grace contained.

Some theories suggested that an archangel could only be killed by another archangel blade. But no angel or archangel could be killed by their own, which was likely the only reason Jack was still alive, if he’d intended what Raphael suspected the young nephil had tried. It should not have been possible to even so much as injure oneself with their own grace, but Raphael was inclined to blame that part on the fact that Jack was not even chronologically a year old yet and toddlers (even toddlers who appeared to look older and had a higher brain capacity than toddlers but were still toddlers nonetheless) were quite adept at injuring themselves in ways that weren’t supposed to be possible.

  
It was no less horrifying and Raphael had no choice but to wonder if this was the first try.

“Jack?” Raphael asked quietly as he let go of the nephil’s own blade and turned around to face the bed. “Can you try to tell me how you’re feeling?” He walked towards the bed, wanting to get a better look at Jack.

The nephil twisted to look at Raphael, which revealed the extent of the damage to his shirt.

It was no longer a shirt.

“Jack…”

What had they done to this child that he had felt it necessary to try  _ this? If Raphael were to ever meet this kid’s original family, he’d flay them. _

“Why can’t I do anything  _ right _ ?!” Jack wailed. “I couldn’t even erase myself from existence because Adam Fucking Young wouldn’t let me and now I can’t!”

Raphael had not wanted to be right and he wasn’t sure what to do now. “Jack, we love you. And any one of us would be happy to listen if you ever want to talk to us about anything.” Jack didn’t respond. “Jack, can you tell me what you mean by not being able to do anything right?”

“Dean always wanted something from me and I wasn’t able to do anything exactly the way he wanted so he was always so  _ mad  _ and expecting that I’d do something evil to prove him right about my being evil, and he wanted Cas back, and the angels wanted more of them, and I couldn’t  _ do  _ any of that but it didn’t stop them and even my birth screwed everything up so I thought I could prevent that too and I couldn’t even do  _ that  _ right.”

“Adam’s alternative was for the  _ best,  _ Jack.” 

“Do you really think so?” 

There was very little hope in Jack’s voice, but it was not completely absent, which gave Raphael hope too. “Absolutely, Kiddo. I wouldn’t trade your presence here for anything in the world.”

Jack sobbed and tugged at his hair. He wanted to believe that sturdy rock of an archangel really meant it, but it was too good to be true.

Raphael sat on the edge of the bed and tried to support the crying nephil.

* * *

When Jack was ready, Raphael cleaned him up with a bit of grace and guided him to the big nest. Emma was still napping and both Michael and Lucifer were resting close together.

“Is everything okay?” Lucifer whispered as Raphael delicately handed over the child who had only just fallen asleep so he could climb up onto the bed without disturbing either child.

“Nothing is okay,” the healer grumbled back

“Oh? Why’s that?”

Raphael slammed his head down into his pillow. “Before coming here, Jack tried to erase his entire self from existence. He told us that, but we think about It? Or consider what that meant? We knew he hadn't been treated well and hadn't been happy, but did we know he was suicidal? Is still suicidal?" He curled in on himself and rolled over so he was facing the wall, refusing to look at either Michael or Lucifer who had both sat up in shock. "He summoned _his_ _blade_ and _stabbed himself_ with it. _Repeatedly._ "

"Rafa, is there a good reason for you to stare at the wall instead of at us?"

"We were so  _ stupid _ ," Raphael whispered. "He told us everything we needed to know and we just let it  _ go _ ."

"Nope, we're not doing this, Raph. We're not beating ourselves up and we're not talking to the wall."

Hands shifted and pulled him until he was rolled over next to Michael and he didn't resist because he didn't have the energy. They'd messed up and it could have been disastrous.

"Jack is alive," Lucifer said. "And we're going to support him. Right now, that matters more than our lamenting that we didn't see this coming. Raph, come over here so Mica and I can hug you better."

And so Raph ended up between Michael and Lucifer and holding both toddler nephilim while his brothers snuggled against him.

They didn’t continue talking. They would need to, but there would be plenty of time for that later, after Gabriel returned. For now, they would rest and seek comfort.

Gabriel came back late that evening. Long after Jack and Emma had shifted from napping to deep sleep. Fledgling nephilim needed a different amount than fledglings or human children, but it had been a long stressful day and the best thing for everyone was sleep.

Not that the archangels had been able to sleep, concern and worry about their children and Gabriel plaguing their rest. They shouldn’t have needed to worry about Gabriel, because he was an adult, but as often as he wandered off for days at a time, it still concerned them when he was out of contact. It didn’t matter that he always came back and was supposedly an adult capable of taking care of himself.

He was family and they worried.

  
  


Gabriel had been grinning like a mad man, but as he leaned against the door frame and took stock of the somber faces of his siblings, it was sobering. “What happened?” he asked. From a first glance, it  _ looked  _ like Emma and Jack were okay, but he really couldn’t tell.

Michael was holding Emma and Lucifer was holding Jack, with Raphael curled up under his older brother’s arm. The Healer’s eyes had been closed, but they opened at the sound of the youngest archangel speaking. He chose not to answer.

“Gabriel,” Lucifer said slowly. His tone conveyed a weary exhaustion that Gabriel had not heard from any of them since near the time the cage had opened, or before. Perhaps during Michael’s stint in Hell.

Yes?” Gabriel skipped across the room, and bounced into the empty space on Raphael’s other side. It was a calculated motion because he could tell that whatever he had missed, it had affected Raphael worse than the other two archangels. He wasn’t surprised, after everything that had happened, it was hard not to see Raphael as the smallest and most sensitive of them all.  _ He’d come so close to almost fading from existence, after all _ .

Raphael oomphed when Gabriel bounded against him, but he still took reassurance in the comforting pressure, instead of grumbling about it, which was how Gabriel knew that he’d estimated correctly.

“I’m not reading your minds,” Gabriel said. “So I have no idea what I missed, unless you  _ tell me _ .”

“Jack tried to kill himself,” Raphael whispered into Lucifer’s side. “He’s suicidal, and we  _ missed it _ .”

Gabriel only heard what Raphael mumbled almost inaudibly because of their archangel hearing, and he winced. “Okay. How do we help him?”

“I don’t  _ know _ .”

Gabriel instinctively reached to touch his brother because Raphael’s voice was so quiet and defeated and he just wanted to comfort him.

“He needs to know that we love him and support him and don’t hold this against him.” There was a sound from Raphael’s throat that was almost a whimper. “What did they do to him? What could they have done that was so bad as to make him question his value and self-worth?”

Gabriel’s breath hitched. “Sometimes they don’t have to have to have done anything, sometimes there is no cause. Raph, it’s okay, we’ll help him.”

Raphael shifted, pulling Gabriel closer while burrowing into Lucifer’s shoulder. Gabriel did the only thing he could think of and wrapped a wing over his family.

* * *

Fenrir Gabrielokison was far from stupid. He may have shown a specific side of himself to feed the stereotype because he enjoyed proving them wrong, but he was no idiot. So when he found out that the humans had written about children of Loki centuries before he and his siblings had ever been born, he decided to look into it. Who was this Fenrir, bound with unbreakable chains, a sword through his maw? That was no way to treat a wolf or dog! Let alone a child of Loki!

His Jor enjoyed shapeshifting into a snake, but he'd never been banished, and Hela had never been to niflheim. (There was a line between pagan offspring and nephilim. In their case it was fuzzy but firm. Gabriel could fool everyone into thinking he was a pagan trickster, but that didn't guarantee his children access to that world. They belonged to Abraham first.)

That didn't even account for Vali and Narfi. Fen's youngest siblings were still young by both pagan and nephil standards, they hadn't even started shapeshifting in earnest yet. So why were there stories about one being turned into a wolf and killing the other? It was unacceptable!

With answers far from forthcoming, Fenrir knew he would just have to research. So he did, starting with the Scandinavian countries where the stories originated. And then he branched outward.

Fenrir found almost nothing. As far as he could tell, Snorri Sturluson was the sole source as far as original writings were concerned. What had inspired him? How had he known about Loki and children he wouldn’t have for almost a thousand years? Sleipnir, a horse shapeshifting child carried by Loki, Jormungandr the world serpent (when he wanted to be), himself, Hela sole daughter of Loki, and the twins.

The rest was clearly exaggeration or perhaps what would have happened if they’d been pagan rather than Nephilim. But the story about the Norse Fenrisulfr made Fen suspicious. Of all the research he found, the stories about the other version of himself was the most corroborated. Names had always been odd, but what if those events had happened to some other Canine that had merely been misidentified?

Fenrir had to know. The binding of the Norse Fenrisulfr to the island of Lyngvi was the most violent of the bad things that had happened in the stories. No one, human or creature, deserved that kind of torture, especially not for something as uncontrollable as origin of birth. Do not cast the sins of the parent onto the child. Wasn’t that where the trouble with Lucifer had originated? And the fates of the first Nephilim.

So he looked. There was no such confinement on Midgard, he scoured. But that didn’t mean that it wasn’t elsewhere. He just had to keep looking.

Getting into Hell wasn’t very easy, but Fenrir was Loki’s son, and a Nephil, at that. He could go wherever he wanted, as long as word didn’t get back to the archangels… He didn’t need to be grounded for the rest of his life.

In the deepest part of Hell, in what was rightfully known as Limbo, there was a hound bound on the edge of a precipice. Her agonized howls echoed mournfully through the vast expanse of nothing. The precipice overlooked an empty cage once designed to contain an Archangel.

Fenrir didn’t want to get too close to the cage, despite the fact that it hung open. Even so, he was certain that if any had been held prisoner there, they would have heard the howling if they had heard anything.

The nephil approached the creature. She showed no sign of violence towards him, (canines often didn’t. For obvious reasons.) There was no sword, thank Odin for small mercies, but Fenrir was offended by the bindings.

Even standing a few feet away, Fenrir could feel the power emitting from the metal chains. What constituted as a holy artifact capable of affecting angels and their progeny changed over time, but he could tell that these had never not been, but that made sense given that they were at the bottom of Hell.

The chains had caused clear chaffing on her skin. There were patches of missing fur and what remained was dull and dirty, coated with soot and ash and all manner of gross things.

“How do I release you?” Fenrir wondered aloud. There was no way he was leaving without her. What did it matter that she was a Hellhound the size of a small building? He was the master of canines and he would not stand for this. Not for any reason.

The Hellhound ceased howling, blinking at Fenrir with confused hopelessness. She didn’t so much as shift, and he could see why. She had been chained for so long even her skin had grown around her bindings. But for no longer. He was determined he would free her.

Fenrir could not touch the chains binding the Hellhound to limbo. He tried, but his grace would not let him. That did not matter in the end. The chains binding her were fastened to a stake he was able to destroy with a thought. One the stake was gone, the chains disintegrated.

Fenrir had been able to understand the gist of what she had been howling, something about her master and wanting to return to his side. She was loyal, and Fenrir could only hope he was not responsible for this.  _ He would kill him. _

“Go home,” he said when the freed Hellhound paused, as though waiting for instruction from him.

“ _ Master Lucifer!”  _ The excited Hellhound jumped and Fenrir could only follow as he realized the unfortunate destination.


	7. Chapter 7

Fenrir Gabrielokison had not seen Gabriel in decades, if not centuries, he wasn't sure. He'd sent a few postcards, but he had gotten so caught up in his search for the origin of the myths supposedly about himself that he didn't even know what year it was.

_ He was so fucking dead.  _

He knew who Lucifer was, of course, but the few explanations Gabriel had once given had painted a grim picture. He'd seen the open cage for himself, but he had no idea when that had happened either.

He was so out of the loop maybe he deserved to be grounded.

Loping after the Hellhound in his own wolf form was just enough of a challenge to be interesting while not so difficult that he couldn't safely allow his thoughts to wander, but flying after a teleporting Hellhound was definitely weird.

When had he last flown? It wasn’t something you could forget how to do as it was very apart of him, but it felt unbelievably nice to stretch his wings, which meant he probably wasn’t flying enough.

Fenrir flew through a building that definitely had a lot of warding but not enough to keep him or an archangel's pet out of, and landed on a concrete floor. And they were still running.

"What's that noise?" someone near asked. Adult male, but not Gabriel. Who, oddly enough, Fenrir could smell close by.

But it didn't end up being relevant because the Hellhound flattened the man who had spoken a half second before he pounced on Gabriel, who had also been standing in the hallway. 

“Why are there dogs in the bunker?” a third person asked.

“It’s Ramsey!”

“Fenrir! I have half a mind to ground you until the turn of the century! I haven’t heard from you in decades!” Gabriel asked.

Fenrir barked once. Wait. Why the Hell was he still in his dog form? Shouldn’t he have shifted back to human form? Maybe he should do that now.

“Shift, Fenrir, ” Gabriel said. It wasn’t quite an order. But it also wasn’t something he could just ignore.

Why was his brain acting so oddly? He had only just been in his human form, until he’d freed Lucifer’s personal hound and flown back here. Was it the flying? He still couldn’t remember when he’d last flown before this.

Gabrieloki got the glint in his eye that meant he was about to do something that Fenrir wasn’t going to like, so he made an honest attempt at shifting back into his normal self even though he wasn’t quite ready to do so.

The result was less than satisfactory.

He was human. But he’d also managed to manifest his very large wings on the physical plane, and covered everyone in soot at the same time. He was still covered in soot.

“Definitely grounded until the turn of the century,” Gabriel grumbled. “Fen, help me up and maybe put your wings away?”

That was a thing that he could do. He knew how to do that.

Maybe if he didn’t have a pulsing migraine it would be easier to remember how to do that.

“Mikha, since you’re just standing there, maybe you should go get Raph?”

Fenrir managed to get his wings put back where they belonged before the third archangel came back with the last one.

Lucifer and Ramsey had shifted so that Lucifer was upright and sitting, giving his dog all the belly rubs she deserved. Alpha Queen of Hellhounds that she was.

Fenrir was sitting with his back to the wall and it seemed like Gabriel was hovering over him, but it was hard to tell because his vision was a little out of focus.

And that was before the two kids who were pretending to be out of sight.

_ Exhaustion, hunger. How long had he been gone, seeking Ramsey in other worlds? _

“Gabriel?” the last archangel asked. “Who is this?”

“This is my son, Fenrir,” Gabriel answer. “Fenrir, this Raphael.”

A hand he could barely see was offered for him to take, and instead of reaching to take it he was standing first. Unsteadily, like a new fawn,  _ why  _ wasn’t his body obeying him? The hand moved, stopped him from crashing-  _ into what? There was nothing there _ . It was like a tidal wave-  _ no, wrong element-  _ landslide, crashing over him, and then he was falling. But it was not an unpleasant feeling of letting go, and he could already feel the migraine fading.

* * *

“Does anyone want to tell me what the fuck is going on?” Michael asked after Fenrir had (fallen? laid down?) on the floor.

“Don’t curse in front of the children, Mikha,” Lucifer chided gently from where he was playing with Ramsey. He was wearing the brightest fucking smile Michael could remember seeing on his brother’s face and it honestly  _ irked  _ him.

“I believe that Fenrir rescued Ramsey from wherever she was being held, do any of you know where that might have been? And I think that maybe he was gone longer than he thinks he was. Anyway, from what I can tell at first glance, he needs a meal, a long nap, and a bath. Why is there so much soot?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Lucifer said as Ramsey licked his face. “But Ramsey was locked away in Hell.”

“Definitely grounded,” Gabriel whispered. But he didn’t look angry or upset. Not even disappointed. Just worried.

“Gabriel, did you really mean it when you said you hadn’t heard from Fenrir in decades?” Michael asked.

“We shared a meal centuries ago, but I’ve received the occasional postcard since then.”

Raphael looked up from what he was doing to glare at Gabriel.

“Don’t you dare think that thought.” Gabriel’s snarl was defensive and hurt. “I didn’t abandon him. He’s always been off doing his own thing, ever since he was little. I expected he wanted space, so I let him have it, and his siblings, who all see him significantly more than I do, said he was doing well and didn’t need anything more from me than he was getting.”

“Sometimes, not always, but sometimes when they say they want space what they really want is more attention.” Lucifer’s voice was calm and collected, and there was no judgement in his tone.

“That’s true,” Gabriel agreed. “But that’s not  _ Fen _ .”

“Perhaps we should put him to bed instead of arguing about why Gabriel and Fenrir haven’t seen each other in a very long time?”

Ramsey got up and walked to where the children were sitting and eavesdropping, and she laid down between them. Someone needed to keep the pups out of trouble, and it may as well be her.

* * *

Later, after Fenrir had gotten to bed, Lucifer could be found alone in the room that was technically his, petting his dog.

They all had rooms of their own, though the archangels spent little time in them. They weren't even decorated to their personal tastes.

Gabriel was at Fenrir's bedside and Raphael was entertaining the nephilim, which only left Michael without something to be doing.

Lucifer didn't notice right away when Michael opened his door. He was too distracted.

Despite himself, Michael couldn't help but give them a wry smile, which they didn't see. There was a mischievous glint in his eye before he suddenly scolded. "So this is where you and the hound sequestered yourselves."

Lucifer jumped. "Dean!" Even after most of a year as their former selves, sometimes their most recent human reincarnation was too hard to forget. They'd kept the lifestyle, after all. It  _ meant  _ something.

Michael dropped the scowl and laughed. "She's not riding in the impala." Lucifer glared at him in return. "You know, in this last lifetime, I always imagined it was going to be a golden retriever that you ended up with. The girl, the dog, the white picket fence, and two and a half kids."

"If Fenrir or Adam sticks around, that would make two and a half. But this family makes me happy. I don't  _ need _ anyone else to complete it. But I agree with Raph about wanting to meet the rest of Gabe's herd. They're family too."

The underlying statement concerning how much of their brothers' lives they had missed went unsaid. Someday they would have to return to Heaven and make sure the choir didn't self destruct, but in the meantime the four of them were satisfied with learning how to be a family again, and the kids, specifically Emma and Jack, were a welcome though unexpected addition. And the kids wouldn't be traded for anything in the world. They were precious. They were loved.

"Do you think Ramsey might be able to help Jack in a way we can't? There's a lot of reasons people have service or therapy animals."

"We could ask Raph later. But it might." Michael shrugged. Dogs had never been particularly interesting to him, and the rule about no dogs in the Impala was not 

“Should we go check on Gabriel and Fenrir?” 

* * *

Sometime after Fenrir had woken up from his nap, Raphael came to check on him with the two kids in tow.

“Hey,” Raphael said. “Is now a good time? The kids wanted to meet Fenrir.”

Gabriel was sitting in a chair between the wall and the bed, and he glanced at Fenrir instead of outright answering his brother. He wanted Fen to decide whether or not he was up for company.

“Sure! I’m Fenrir,” he said, introducing himself as Emma ran forward and Jack followed more slowly.

“I’m Emma, and this is my brother Jack.” She headed straight for the foot of the bed.

Jack had decided a while ago that it was just easier to go along with Emma sometimes than it was to do anything else. He didn’t really want to get any closer, but Emma grabbed his arm and started climbing up onto the bed so he went.

“Won’t you please teach us how to extend our wings like you did? Yours are so massive.

Jack looked terrified at the prospect, but Emma was a stubborn force of nature.

Fenrir looked at Raphael, silently asking for permission. He wasn’t sure yet, but since they had been brought by Raphael, he considered the Healer to be their guardian to an extent. And as the Healer, he would know whether or not it was actually safe for the kids to try this.

Raphael nodded. He didn’t know whether or not they would be able to manifest their wings this early in their lives, as it took more than several centuries for angels to be able to do so. However, he also knew that both kids had already flown, and Jack had done so consciously, which they also should have been able to do yet. He was a little concerned about what the state of their wings would be, what with both children having experienced great violence.

The older nephil- How old? Raphael wondered- slowly and carefully walked the two younger nephilim through how to manifest their wings on the physical plane. He instructed in a way that was easy to understand. To Raphael, it sounded as though this was not the first time Fenrir had taught others how to do this, and he wanted to ask but chose not to interrupt.

It was almost like watching Gabriel teach Heaven’s fledglings all over again.

* * *

“It’ll be okay, Jack. Come on, it’ll be fun!” Emma shouted.

Michael and Lucifer, with Ramsey on their heels, stepped into Fenrir’s room to find something they had not at all expected.

Jack and Emma were kneeling on the bed with Emma several feet closer to Fenrir than Jack, who was about as close to the foot of the bed as he could get without falling off. Emma was bouncing up and down, her face lit up with excitement.

But the impressive part was that Emma’s wings had manifested on the physical plane. Her wingspan was a few feet and entirely consisted of baby fluff in shades of red, pink, and purple like a beautiful sunset. However, much of the fluff near the base of her wings was darker, where it appeared singed.

It seemed that Fenrir and Emma were trying to convince Jack to manifest his wings. Gabriel and Raphael were in the background. They both looked a touch concerned, but made no attempt to stop the proceedings.

“It’s okay, Jack,” Fenrir said. “It’s not going to hurt you.”

Jack shifted uncomfortably. “Don’t want to.”

“Please, Jack!”

He slipped his lip into his mouth. “But they’re so ugly." It came out as a whisper, but it made all the archangels want nothing more than to do  _ something _ to convince him otherwise.

_ How could a child, a nephil child, believe such a thing? _

Michael and Lucifer came the closest to rushing forward, but they were stopped by Fenrir.

"That can't possibly be true," he said, leaning forward so that he was closer to Jack. "Small nephilim have the prettiest wings I've ever seen and there's no way you're any different. Pinky promise."

"Really?" Jack stared wide eyed at Fen. "You really think so?"

It broke the archangels' hearts to hear Jack sound so desperate for approval. It merely added to the terrible picture they could have painted of all that had happened.

Fenrir nodded solemnly, and that seemed to be exactly what Jack had needed.

The young nephil who had seen far too much, closed his eyes and concentrated on following Fenrir's directions. Emma had been able to manifest her wings, he could do it too.

And he did.

And it agonized four archangels to see the beautiful yet marred wingspan.

Jack's wingspan was longer than Emma's, almost the width of the bed. His adolescent feathers and baby fluff were an oily black with an iridescent sheen reflecting back the colors of the room as they rustled. Each adolescent feather was scarred by stress lines and there were more bald patches on his wings than there was feathers or fluff

"Jack…" Raphael whispered, shock and disbelief and pain warring in his barely audible croon.

They were all still, silent. They hadn't known it was possible for angelic wings to reach such a state and to see them on the child they were trying so hard to help was beyond heartbreaking.

Only Ramsey moved. She padded quietly forward, and when she came to the bed, she bowed her head forward to lick the damaged wings. She had a mother's instinct, and everyone in the room was  _ hers. _

“Well, I don’t know about anyone else in the room, but I think that your wings look beautiful. Even more so than my siblings at your age.”

Fenrir’s voice cut through the silence, and slowly, ever so slowly, Jack looked up towards him, a desperate sort of hope in his eyes, even as his wings twitched from Ramsey’s affections.

“You really think so?”

“I don’t think so. I know so.”


End file.
